Potatoes 2019

I would guess that tubers continue to grow as long as there is some green in the tops. Whether or not you should water depends on local conditions. Here there is a real danger that late watering will rot potatoes in the ground and encourage southern blight, so I stop watering early and dig before the tops are dead. When I gardened with a tractor and had potatoes on high ridges, I could wait until the tops were dead before digging and got better yield per foot of row.

binnylou, didn't you say you had sandy soil? IMHO I would water them.

I have my potatoes in bags and the growth on top says that the heat took a toll on them despite watering. There is new growth coming on those same stems. I almost dug them out but think it was too early. With the new growth I am leaving them in.

binnylou, I have mentioned it before and I remember talking about the use of the fabric bags with someone here not sure if this thread or another. But I did talk about here in this thread.

This is about my 3rd year doing potatoes in the bags. I hope to improve each year. I have about 4 bags of it this year. I have also let a couple other people use a bag to try it out and they loved it. I do it make it easier on my back as I put the bags on an elevated plank and sit down to plant and weed if needed and water.

Last year my grandsons were here at harvest time and they enjoyed going through the bags to find the potatoes.

This past year I grew potatoes in 5 gallon black plastic pots. One tuber for each pot. This worked extremely well. I used old planting soil mixed with 50% compost. I was able to grow them all through the winter (no frost here), and served them on both TG and Christmas day. As the weather got warmer, I stopped because they needed water all the time. But I considered it a great success and likely will do it again this year.

For seed, I used both official seed potatoes, and store-bought organic eating potatoes. I was disappointed with the ordered seed potatoes. The store-bought were both cheaper and healthier looking. Now I'll save my own, till that no longer works. 

potatoes from a 7gal potato bag...




I put in about 4 or 5 potato eyes

Question on store bought Russet potatotes:   I couldn't get any planted this year for a variety of reasons, so I'm buying them from stores, trying to find bags are aren't set directly in the path of windows and thus sun.

I'm finding that after about 2 weeks, sometimes less, solanine develops, not on the entire potato, and not always on the tops that are more exposed. I have no good storage space but keep them in shade and away from direct sunlight. Basement storage is not optional b/c of the high humidity.    

What are others' experiences with solanine, whether on homegrown or purchased potatoes? Is a 2 week onset indicative of anything, i.e., the potatoes having already been exposed to sunlight? What I'm thinking is that they were in fact exposed to too much sun at some time between harvest and delivery to a store, and that turning green has already begun even before I've purchased them.

Thoughts on this? I really get tired of peeling green skin off my potatoes.  And I'm not sure how far down I should cut to eliminate all traces of the toxin.