Luck of the Irish tis Planting Potatoes!

  

'Tis the luck of the Irish and season for planting potatoes lads! 

Most wise gardeners know to have your potatoes in the ground before March 17th, St Patrick's Day.  In our area my wise father-in-law says to plant a little earlier. We had a good rain last week so it  was time to let the planting begin!

The first step after preparing the soil by plowing or tilling up the soil. is to make your rows. You can read official row building guidelines in my previous blog on planting onions. You just make the rows further apart for potato planting!

After your row is dug, about 6 inches deep, you carefully plant the potato seeds with the eyes up and about 10 inches apart. If you have never seen potato seeds--they are just cut up potatoes basically. You just want each piece to have and eye or sprout on it.  These eyes sprout and make the roots and the leaves of the plant. Potatoes are a root plant and the actual fruit grows underground. Each eye will make several potatoes if the growing season is filled with good things like rain, sunshine and etc.

And then you cover the little spuds up for a little nap! Soon they will burst forth from the ground praising God and growing and blowing like little weeds. Underneath that soil though things will be really taking root! (pun intended)

Then you use a good measure and move over and start your next row. In this garden a good measure is a precise hoe handle, about 4 feet.

You can plant a bunch and then store the  potatoes in a root cellar aka as tornado shelter or fraidy hole or just any cool spot and they will keep for many weeks.  In about 90 days or so we should be digging tators! Yes we will post a few pictures of this event!

I threw this picture in just to show how country gardeners recycle. Organic scraps are just thrown out in the garden for recycling. Here we have egg shells, orange peels, maybe a carrot and maybe a tomato. It is really good for the soil. 

As always, thanks for stopping by today and don't forget to get yourself a big 'o dose of country sunshine today!