Growing Potatoes
This is the biggest of my potato plants with resident ladybug who had to be rescued from a wheelbarrow full of rainwater.
I planted my large (2 ft X 2 ft) cedar potato box with excess red potatoes that grew eyes in the pantry. These went in on St. Patrick's Day, and all five have made an appearance. Here they are, about five weeks later, after an especially rainy weekend. The plants are pretty cold hardy, so I take a risk and plant them well before the last frost. Having them in a raised bed makes it pretty easy to throw a garden blanket over them before a cold night as needed. I haven’t had to do that for the potatoes yet this year, though. (The beets are another story entirely! As seedlings, they demanded to be tucked in every night the temperature dipped below freezing.)
In my experience, the intensity of Colorado sun and heat can cause potato plants stress, which they'll show by wilting. In past years I've been able to help them spring back after particularly hot days by watering them in the evenings. This year, I'm excited to see if they respond well to the newly-installed drip system as their large leaves can be burdened by watering from above.
Here’s a photograph of some potatoes and other goodies from an evening harvest in July of 2014. The beer can gives reference for size.
The potato boxes I planted last year are, like this year, made out of scrap cedar from a fence project. The cedar is untreated, so there’s no danger of leeching any funky chemicals or substances into our healthy vegetables. Additionally, cedar is a natural pest repellant. It’s more expensive than other woods, but you can’t beat it for safe, natural pest control for raised vegetable beds. Unlike the potato box I planted this year, the boxes last year were only 1 ft X 1 ft, and I’m pretty sure my yields were low due to lack of space.
It will be a long time until harvest, but I'm already excited about pulling off the side of the potato box and digging through the rich, black soil for bright red potatoes!