Have often wondered about the supply story of potatoes from planting to packaging/shipping. This is a fascinating YT channel, glad I subscribed. Great content, quality, production and especially presentation! Cheers.
I wish they would come out faster hahah then we would have time to do some other things in the winter! Haha oh well. Having to many potatoes is a good problem to have :)
I used a Spudnik cellar hog at my farm with an extendable conveyor . Always loved the Spud avalanche . LOL yes the final cleanup of the shed always meant some shoveling . You guys have got this process dialed in for sure . Your soil is very forgiving for washing . My place had a volcanic sandy loam , very easy to wash . Good content and great editing . Enjoy your attention to the details .
Very cool! I’m always a big fan of your content Molly, and I got my Bessy fix. It amazes me the volume of product you deal with and I believe you said that you guys are a smaller operation - comparatively I mean in size. Wow that is astounding! I like how you guys have diversified as well, you don’t just farm potatoes. Well, I wish you and Shane all the best till next time.
Thank you so much for this comment! I’m glad you enjoy the channel. Yes we are like a “large scale - small family farm” making it happen! Bessy is going to be the star of this channel! Your comment has inspired me to do a video just about bessy. We do have other dogs. But bessy is Shane’s dog and she comes everywhere with him. She has so much personality. Coming soon- a day in the life of Bessy
I am so amazed at the quantity of potatoes and how you guys have it down to a science. Keep up the videos. They are enjoyable to watch. Thank You! Dwight
Yes Jim, good point! Haha we haven’t had much time to work on the building in the last two week. I do have another video coming out with a little more of the build soon. Thank you again for watching
Thank you Molly, for another great video. It seems that it is a fairly labor intensive process to open up a bin, but I cant think of any new technology that would make it easier and still stand up to the pressure of that much weight. It just shows that where our food comes from is not without a labor of love. Keep showing us that beautiful smile, young lady.
Your warehouse is a mind blower. Doing my part! I have my potato for breakfast every morning. I usually have a small piece of pork chop with it. Keep up the good work, potato farmers. I try to grow a few in my garden but never enough.
New to your show. This episode is the newest I’ve seen but love them all. You’ve got one heck of a farm, and I love how you guys work around your dogs, so family like!
Thank you for joining us! We love this farm. And work so hard to make it what it is. The dogs are great! Bessy is becoming a little star on the channel! 🐕
I've watched alot of Farming videos. I was raised on a Michigan dairy farm. Had chickens, Pigs, with other animals. It's pretty cool to see and hear of others ways of farm life. Hope Shane safe in that container? OSHA here in Michigan fronws that..😮.be careful...
It's always interesting to see how our nation's food is produced. I have affection for all farmers based on my life experiences. Working on dairy and produce farms in my 1970's youth introduced me to descent, honest, harworking people (farmers/employers) who taught me so many valuable life lessons. Those experiences shaped my life and the friendships remain to this day.
Oh cool! Well next time you are in town come by and get some taters! Thank you for the compliment on how we run the farm. We really take a lot of pride in being farmers. The Bells have worked so hard to be where they are today.
Interesting to see how potato farming is done today, as a young guy still in HS I lived in Aroostook county, I worked for the farmers nights and weekends during school season and all summer when off school. $2.50 an hour and that was pretty good pay for 1970. Kept me in spending money and I was able to buy and maintain a vehicle. I liked farming and considered making it a career, however at that time smaller farmers were being crowded out and it made it less appealing so I moved a little south and got into the logging business...now that's dying but I m retired and it's someone else's problem now. Thanks for bringing us along 😊
I find your channel very interesting. I'm from Idaho and have seen potato farming a lot, but the family farms are about gone here and a huge operations. Nice to to see the smaller family farm way of doing it. I like your way better.
Hello there Beautiful Lady!!! Man your channel is really growing fast…. congratulations on your success and remember what I told you…. Have a great night 😊
You know it's not about the potatoes right? Although it is interesting you are the key to this channel. As cute as you are noooooone is that interested in potatoes. It's you and I'm not being creepy. It's nice to see good people doing good work.
Great video thanks for sharing god bless everyone be careful working around slippery areas I slipped yesterday and messed up my back and leg I can barely move 😢 I was thinking the other day when it snowed if I was a potato farmer I wouldn’t have to worry about food if I was snowed in I’d have a barn full of potatoes 😂
So sorry to hear about the slip! I slipped the other day outside walking the dogs and hit my arm pretty hard. Nice bruise. Rest up! And yes if there was ever a serious situation that happened we would be all set for food! Haha
I hauled potatoes out of Oregon, Idaho, Colorado, Texas, Alabama and Florida over my 30 years of trucking. A lot of those places also grew onions. Have you guys ever grown onions or is there some reason not to where you farm?
They go all over. Recently we have been selling the big tote bags to a farm that repack and takes them to Boston market. We also pack for market basket grocery stores in New England.
how good are the prices for your cereals and potatoes ? over here in the uk wheat prices are very bad around what we were getting in the 1980s and fert prices are have gone though roof hope things are better for you. trevor
I am officially caught up on watching all of your videos! I grew up on a "baccer" farm here in eastern NC. Enjoy learning how folks grow and harvest different crops in different states. Keep the "tater" content coming!
@@BellsFarming No longer watch regular TV. This kinda stuff is my entertainment nowadays. Everyday people doing everyday stuff that makes the world go round. lol!
Great video once again! So I’m in idaho and I think Maine has the same growing season. What month do you guys start planting new potatoes? Do you grow a starter first or just take a sprouting potato and plant them? I can’t plant my garden in the beds until end of May, early June. Thanks!
We start planting end of April early May. The way we plant potatoes is with potato seed. That means it’s a piece of a potato with an eye on it. They are not sprouted. The potato is cut into small pieces and then planted. 💚
From Australia. I probably shouldn't tell you this, but I am in shorts and tee shirt eating a nice juicy California Navel Orange, it's only 88.9F today, a bit milder than normal for this time of the year.
Very interesting. Would love to sell you some bags for packing. We can handle any of your bags needs. And our bags won't fail in line. Would be delighted for an opportunity.
Dad built potato storage before I was born in the late ‘50s. It didn’t work well because of our high water table. But it’s all gone now and 50 acre buildings are there now.
Hello there - I have a few questions :) 1. Why do you store the potatoes ? 2. Do you sell them all over the country ? 3. How long has your family been doing potatoes ? 4. Do you have a local stand or farmers market you do ?
Hey there! 1- because we got lots of them and potatoes keep really well. 2- we sell mostly to the new England states. 3- Shane’s family has been growing potatoes for around 100years 4- we have a retail store at the farm packing facilities that we sell out of. Thank you!
Hey there, we grow around 150 acres of potatoes. But we get great yields! We are able to fill our storage building to the max, and have plenty to sell from the field that do not go into storage.
If you "dog eared" the bulkhead boards they would be a lot easier to remove and install, but still be strong enough to hold them in. The ends would look like the top of a yard fence - like this.. /TTT\
If you look closely the bulkheads are numbered with orange paint, normally I take the time to put them where they go, but since they are all “close enough “ I didn’t bother this year, so they came out more difficult then normal. Next fall I will be putting them where they go I think, that was more difficult then it had to be .
@@alphaguy54 hey I have an Instagram account where you can send messages so they don’t need to be on the videos if it’s not related. The page name is bellsfarming.
That’s a lot of potatoes! Can you talk a little bit about the environmental systems and what temperatures you try to keep the buildings at and how that’s accomplished?
I struggle to keep my garden potatoes for the winter season in a cool place I can’t imagine having my livelihood at risk. I would starve. I was a grain farmer back in the day and I know the tricks for storing grain I imagine there are hard learned tricks for spuds.
@@robertgessert645 yeah the Bells like all farmer have good years, great years, and bad years. We have been lucky enough to have a lot of great years since I have been around. I imagine back in the day when times were much harder, and the crop was a lot smaller there was a lot more risk to be able to pay make a profit. I’m sure a lot of small farms have years when they make enough just to keep farming, and not real profit.
My calculations show about 1400 tonnes in 3 mil lbs. It looks a little unsafe removing the barrier by hand. A flood of spuds could easily overwhelm and crush a worker. We lose a few every year effectively drowned in grain silos, the pressure of the grain means they cannot breathe. Are there any plans to automate the process with conveyors, rather than a bucket at a time? Thanks for the video.
Hey there. As to the safety of the bulk heads. There is a lot of weight pushing on the bulk heads. But you could see that not many potatoes came rolling out when the bottom was removed. As long as you inspect your bulk heads and remove them the correct way there is minimal danger. We do not have any plans to automate this process. We will plan to automate other labor intensive positions before anything with this system. Plus Ray likes shoveling potatoes :) Thank you watching!
