8. Easy-to-Harvest, Weed-Free Potatoes

Growing great potatoes!

By John Moody

Planting

1. Start ’em early or start ’em late!

   • Potatoes are a cool season crop, so if you can do them early (planting in February to early March) or late (planting late July to early August) you get better yields with less pest pressure.

2. Plant ’em light.

   • We plant in a shallow trench just below the top of the soil line to make harvest easier and discourage certain pests from going after the spuds. We add to each potato starter piece a handful or so of worm compost and a few handfuls of our standard planting/compost mix (half wood chippy compost, half coir).

3. Mulch!

   1. Once potatoes are in that shallow trench, we cover them with a well rotted wood chip mulch. Potatoes love mulch. In our field trials and research we have read, mulch is better than no mulch, but rotted wood chip mulch is the best mulch for best yields and least pest damage.

   2. We mulch three times.

1. 1. • A light covering mulch at planting (1 to 2 inches) with the most rotted wood chips we have available.

      • A second mulching when the first shoots come up (this can be used to protect the plants for frost or freeze as well)

      • A final third mulching the secnd time the plants break through the mulch

      • If done properly, this mulching not only increases yields and decreases water, but it eliminates 80-95% of your weeds.

Frost or Freeze Protection

• Best way to protect potatoes from a frost or freeze is 1-2 layers of floating row cover/agri-bond spread over them on hoops.

Pests

• Best defense is a good offense. Attract beneficial predatory insects to your garden, especially lady bugs and all stages of their life cycle.

• Colorado potato beetle
  • Very dangerous to potato crops, can reduce plants to a wasteland in just a week or so if allowed to get going. Key is catching them at first reproductive cycle and eliminating them.
  • Hand cleaning of plants up to 100-200 plants isn’t overly time consuming and a great job for kids who can earn rewards doing so.
  • We collect into empty buckets we fill afterwards with water, as we don’t want to kill any beneficial insects so.
  • To help reduce pressure/population, you can use beneficial nematodes applies to your soil for this and a wide range of other pests. Beneficial nematode applications combined with diligent early hand picking can radically reduce this and a number of other pests.
• Flea beatles can be controlled by

  • Covering with agribond/floating row cover before emergence

  • Having lots of lady bugs and other flea beatle eaters on hand

  • Apply diatomaceous earth or a similar organic control