Potatoes Two Ways
There is nothing like going into the garden and digging a nice big potato with a thin skin for dinner. A freshly harvested white potato from a plant still actively growing guarantees you not only great satisfaction but also a vegetable that is filled with vitamins because you don’t have to remove the skin to eat it.
If you plan ahead, you need not wait for the potato plant to die back to the ground before you start harvesting.
It’s common to grow potatoes by hilling them with soil, which stimulates the plants to generate rhizomes on which the potato grows. Part of that way of planting is to wait to harvest the potatoes until after the plants have died back to the ground. Late-harvested potatoes store better. But you have to wait to eat freshly dug potatoes. That’s a delicacy I enjoy as early as possible in the summer, so I hill my potatoes using compost made from leaves raked the previous fall. The compost still contains a large percentage of partially decayed leaves, but it is rich brown, light and easy to handle. I apply six inches of the compost as soon as the plants have grown a foot tall. Lift the bottom leaves of each plant so they don’t come in contact with the ground but are supported by the compost.
As soon as the plants have grown another 10 to 12 inches, I apply another six to eight inches of compost, again lifting the bottom leaves from the ground and firmly applying compost along the stems. Another application of compost is made after the plants have grown another foot, which generally occurs when the plants are beginning to flower. By the third application of compost, the mounds surrounding the plants are about 18 inches high. After the third round, I hoe a thin layer of soil over the hills of compost to help keep it in place. Covering the compost with soil also helps to keep it moist so that it will continue to decompose while in the garden.
Since the compost remains loose, it is easy to sneak your hands down around the roots of the plants and harvest a potato or two without disturbing the plant. Harvest no more than two potatoes from each plant this way.
After the tops of the plants have died back to the ground, the potatoes are easy to dig because most will have grown in the mound of compost, though some of the larger potatoes will have grown in the soil beneath the mound of compost.
The area where the potatoes had been growing can now be raked smooth and lightly roto-tilled in preparation for planting the fall crop of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower or rutabaga.
Over the years, I have found fewer potato beetle problems when using this method. Other compost-hill growers have reported similar results.
Ask Dr. Gouin your questions at [email protected]. Please include your name and address.