Higher Ground Garden Blog

Saturday, April 2, 2016

Potato curing, planting

This year we ordered a lot of potatoes, 25 lbs, to help with prior year ground rot losses and we will also try the following new steps from the Cornell method (see new blog guide).  Normally we've needed 7-10 lbs of potatoes in each 80 ft long bed.

- Sort potatoes into small and large
- Small are no slice for direct plant to 1st row after pre-warming by Cornell method 
- Large are sliced with 2-3 eyes each and 2-3 oz minimum weight to 2nd row after cured.
- Cure slices in large grocery bag using Cornell method and toss with our fir bark dust, waiting a week in cool temp to heal
- Plant all potatoes using Cornell method (4" trench or less, eyes up, 12-15" apart, 1 row per bed, cover level with well draining soil or compost mix)

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1 comment:

  1. The above Cornell method worked well in 2016. In 2017 we won't need to slice any because we're planting fewer (6 beds instead of 8) and need about 90 plants, instead of the roughly 115 I counted in our 25lb box (of different sizes). I suggest we plant leftovers in a known cluster for digging up and infilling later any that fail; also, I'll plant about a dozen in my garden as backups.

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