Q. Ok I’ve searched and this seems to be the upshot on taters w/ MM. Plant in rows, 4 – 6 inches deep, feed weekly till flowering (starts or is done?), and don’t “hill” but mulch or cover lightly w/ soil to prevent greening. My question now seems to be if it would be better to plant them in my 12″ grow boxes or my 24″ grow-boxes.
I am curious about the hilling tho because I always thought that was how you got more spuds, thus the tire stacking thing. Can you say a little more about that, please.
A. The ideal width of a growing bed, for large plants like potatoes, is 18″. 24″ is wider than is needed, is difficult to water efficiently, and is too narrow for an extra row of plants.
Twelve inch-wide beds or boxes are too narrow to plant two rows of large plants like potatoes, and much aisle space is wasted if you only one row per box.
We plant potatoes, making sure we have at least one good eye, 8″ apart near the edge of a Grow-Box, and at the base of the ridges in a Soil-Bed, with two rows per bed or box.
We plant so that the top of the potato is 3-4″ deep in boxes, and 2-3″ deep in the soil.
We do not ridge, nor do we mulch.
In the weeding process, we pull the ridges down and back up – perhaps as many as two times in the early spring. Each time some soil falls around the stems, but NOT a LOT. Thereafter, as we weed we pull soil from the center of the aisle up the ridges. Again, some soil will spill over onto the stems of the potatoes. Over the course of the summer we may have put 1-2″ of soil on the base of the plants, but again NOT a LOT.
The close planting and healthy heavy greenery do much to keep any tips of potatoes from getting green from exposure to sunlight.
Feeding with Weekly Feed continues until your potatoes are in full flower. That is the last time you feed.
