This is our second year of trying to raise potatoes. After this year’s harvest, I said I was done but I’m pretty sure I will plant again. This year was an epic failure! My spuds were duds for sure. However, I did learn a lot.
Potato Varieties
Let’s start with the varieties of potatoes that I planted. I choose potatoes that were known to grow well in my zone 6A Ohio garden. This year I bought from a local seed and feed store that we have bought from before as well as ordered some online. I wanted to see if there was a difference. Some say the seeds we buy locally will do better because they are acclimated to our climates, so I wanted to try this theory.
Kennebec
The first variety was recommended by my dad who has grown potatoes most of his life. It is the Kennebec potato. It has been many years since he has physically been able to plant potatoes, but when he did, he had an amazing harvest. They would usually last most of the winter for them. I bought this variety from Gurney’s seed as well as Dumonts, the local seed and feed store. This potato is an 80–100-day maturity variety and grows 2’-3’ in height.
Purple Viking
The second variety is the Purple Viking. I was super excited for this one because it was so new to my family. This was a potato that I found watching Growfully with Jenna. She is a fellow Ohio gardener and is very knowledgeable with everything green and growing. I purchased these seed from Gurney’s as well. My local shop did not carry them. This potato has a beautiful purple skin and a creamy yellow flesh. That potato is also known to do well in my zone. They also have an 80–100-day maturity and grow 2’-3’ in height just like the Kennebec.
I also planted some fingerling potatoes that I had left from last year’s harvest with little expectations. These didn’t do well last year but I had leftover grow bags so I thought I would give it a try.
Planting The Potatoes
We planted all our potatoes April 26th, which is late for our area, but we were out of town off and on in March and April. I planted a few potatoes in the same raised bed we used for last year’s planting, mistake number one. This is a raised bed that is 4’ by 4’ and probably 18”- 24” deep.
First thing I did was send my husband to Earth & Wood to pick up a yard of topsoil to top off all my raised beds. While he was there, they asked what he was using the soil for, and he informed them it would be add to our raised beds. They then said topsoil was not a good choice and directed him to get a soil called Nutri blend.
When he arrived home and we began to unload this, I could tell that this was too rich. By that I mean I could smell the manure and knew it was more of a composed cow manure than a soil. We added it anyway because they are the experts, right? That was the first area we were planning on using for raising potatoes.
Second, we planted some potatoes in the soil in front of the raised bed so we would have some in the raised bed, some in ground, and last was some in grow bags.
Well unfortunately we used the Nutri blend soil for all areas so needless to say my results were the same in all 3 types of planting.
I also purchased an organic root fertilizer that we added at the time of planting, not realizing that I already had enough organic fertilizers and organic matter or too much for that matter.
The Potato Growing Season
Potatoes grew wonderfully, matter of fact to good. They grew to 3’ – 5’ tall so that wasn’t normal. It was a very hot and dry summer with a very cool and wet spring. The bugs were awful this year as well. This mixed with the extra rich soil made for a complete potato harvest failure. Therefore, that may have been a cause of why my spuds were duds.
We planted the potatoes April 28th and Harvested them September 12th. This was well over the suggested maturity time. Waiting didn’t help.
The Pests
Deer
We put insect/bird netting over them because we have a big deer problem. Yep, we live in the city on a small lot and still have a large deer population which is sad for the deer. Every year we struggle with this, so I was better prepared this year. Most of my gardens need to be covered with some sort of netting or they will either be destroyed by animals or bugs.
Pillbugs
The bugs that may have had a part in my potato demise, were the dreaded pillbug or roly poly bugs as my kids used to call them. I know these bugs are beneficial, but we truly have an infestation. There were thousands of them as we were digging for potatoes.
After doing some research, I have found that yes, they eat the dead and decomposing or the weak and sick plants, which is good, but when there is an over population of them that is when they begin to eat your new and healthy plants. Not sure if they had anything to do with why my potatoes struggled but I am sure this didn’t help. We did come across a few potatoes that were half rotten and eaten by bugs. Not saying it was those guys.
I didn’t really see any bugs on the foliage this year which was good. I also didn’t notice lots of bloom and flowers either. This is what tells you that the potatoes are forming underground.
Harvesting
On a sunny, dry day we decided to go ahead and harvest all the potatoes. You want to harvest potatoes when the ground is dry if possible. This will help the potatoes to store longer. It is also best to let the green plants die back before digging the potatoes. Always make sure to use any spuds that you may have nicked during digging. These potatoes will not store well and will rot and cause the potatoes around it to go bad as well.
First, we removed any plant that was left from the soil. Most of the plants had died back at this point. Then, using a garden fork and a shovel we dug around in the raised bed. The soil was dry, very loose, and full of the pillbugs. Not a lot of earthworms which I thought was odd. We had planted 3 short rows and really didn’t find much.
Moving on to the in ground potato bed we found much of the same. Loose dry soil and lots of pills bugs. Same for the grow bags. We did use the same soil that we bought for all 3 planting styles. This must have been the problem as well as bugs.
Lesson learned, but we will not give up. We will do things differently next year and continue to press on. We will probably go with the method I am most familiar with, that being in-ground. I am thinking we will use one of our “no till gardening” rows. Click on the link to see how we added these new rows this year and planted in them the same year.
Potatoes are one of those crops that we use the most. This would be a crop I would say is very important to our family to be able to produce on our own and not continue to purchase. Our goal is to raise the food we can and buy locally if we cannot. So, it looks like this year we are going to search out a farmer to purchase some storage potatoes from as well as onions, but that is another story.
I hope you found something from this article useful. If so leave me a comment and Happy Planting!
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