Wednesday, July 6, 2022

Mentioned on SurvivalBlog!

My post on canning potatoes was picked up by SurvivalBlog!

3 comments:

  1. Thank you for the excellent article! Where do you get your seeds potatoes? I've heard you can only keep replanting potatoes so many times and then the yield will begin to drop and you'll need new seed potatoes. Is this true or can you keep replanting Kennebecs or Yukon Golds year after year with no change to the yield? Thanks

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    Replies
    1. A potato is a potato, so yield shouldn't drop from replanting your own potatoes vs. using seed potatoes. The big (and legitimate) reason seed potatoes are recommended is to curtail the spread of disease (it has nothing to do with reduced yield). Only 15 out of America's 50 states have climates suitable for growing seed potatoes (hard cold winters which kill pests and diseases, etc.). Since we're in north Idaho, we are fractionally less concerned about diseases and pests more common in warmer climates, so I regrow potatoes from our own harvest most of the time (I get fresh seed potatoes every few years). If you're concerned about pests and disease, by all means use seed potatoes.

      Seed potatoes can be found online, and during the appropriate time of year (earlier in southern areas, later in northern areas) you can find seed potatoes in any nursery, including the nursery sections of big box stores (North 40, Home Depot, etc.).

      - Patrice

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    2. I haven't bought any more seed potatoes for the last 8 years. I pick out seed potatoes from my harvest and put them on a different shelf of the root cellar and then just replant them the day after the full moon of April. Farmers in the area told me starting them then reduces the chances of loosing your crop to the potato beetle. They take almost a month to come up but if the beetle does show up it is usually after the flowers have dropped and then it will not affect the crop, just the looks of the plants. This year we did not have any beetle at all and our potatoes have had the water off of them for a week and I will dig them next week. (it is August 15, 2022)

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