If you enjoyed this video, please "Like" it and share it to help increase its reach! Thanks for watching 🙂TIMESTAMPS for convenience: 0:00 Introduction To Growing Potatoes 1:35 When To Harvest Potatoes 2:15 What I Did Differently This Year 3:20 My Incredible Potato Harvest 6:48 How To Fertilize Potatoes 7:41 How To Cure Potatoes For Storage 9:39 Adventures With Dale
I did an experiment this year with potatoes. I planted about 50 potatoes in straw and about the same number in soil with compost. The compost potatoes came up first and were outgrowing the straw grown potatoes for about 2 weeks. Then suddenly the straw potatoes exploded in size and the soil potatoes started to fall behind. Currently it's night and day difference between them. I will definitely use straw next year, maybe with compost and another batch with just fertilizer to see the difference.
The problem with compost is that it is very heavy in organic matter, which breaks down often into nitrogen. The nitrogen causes heavy vegetative growth, but it can negatively impact potato development. When you plant in compost, you have to *heavily* amend with bone meal in order to add additional phosphorus to counter the nitrogen. Your straw bales are a nitrogen poor environment, which can lead to less vegetative growth and actually promote tuber development. Too much nitrogen can be a problem when using compost.
@@HealthyHabitsGrow if they planted in bales then there is usually a conditioning process to start the bales composting in place. Not sure on the details, it’s a quick Google.
Well done Anthony! I too did a great job with my potatoes this year. The only thing I did different was I fertilized them with 13-13-13 and bone meal. I think i mixed sulfer in the fertilize also. early in the spring We worked some good organic manure in.really well. It did me proud. I didn't believe I was going to get a garden this year but it turned out really good. Keep up the good work Anthony. With all of the artificial and fake stuff in our grocery store foods, I am glad I am able to raise my groceries myself. Nothing makes a homemaker more proud than to make a meal for under $5.00 and that is for the cost of the meat. I like to make one pot meals that are just as good as leftovers the next day and possibly the next day as well. I had a friend asked why I made such a large pot of food, I told her it stretches the budget, saved time in the kitchen as well as saves on the cost of cooking fuel. Who likes to sweat in a hot kitchen every day when you can get a break with leftovers? Jessie from Arkansas
I did some similar far fertilizing. As I filled my containers about every 6 inches, I added a granular slow release organic fertilizer. Then, I topped it with 5-6 inches of shredded straw. Once they broke through the straw, I water the straw as if it were soil.
@@TheMillennialGardenerlast year you posted it and I put your birthday on my calendar so I could wish you a Happy Birthday. Your a blessing to so many! Again, Happy Birthday Anthony!
Bro i just wish i had a friend that was remotely as interested in gardening as me. Im new to this and having design advice or help would be nice. Im just so ready to throw in the towel!
That harvest is incredible! 😱 so much people are getting tiny crops. Truly impressive! 😃 Is the taste very different compared to store bought potatoes?
Great video! My potatoes harvest was one of those 25 gals with 5 potatoes and I got maybe 5 lbs so not bad but this time around I'll do 4 or 5 25 gal grow bags like you did and fertilize them.
Feed them more. More bone meal and 20-20-20. Potatoes devour fertilizer. Just don’t go too hard on nitrogen or they’ll produce leaves instead of tubers.
My favorite gardener!!! I need to try potatoes asap (onions too). This year I’m growing anything I can… next year, I’m growing anything I actually need and use often 😂
You're welcome! The key is to not give them too much nitrogen. Too much nitrogen will produce foliage and poor potato production. They need bone meal, and they need regular feedings. Potatoes are very heavy feeders, so we can't be cheap with our feedings. They give back what we put in.
I just cut the sprouts off with a little of the potato and skin and plant those in buckets.i get about 2 pounds of small potatoes,enough for a beef stew or a dish of boiled potagoes.this season I actually planted them in a raised bed as an experiment.i don't typically fertilize though,however this year I put compost in my buckets and the potatoes were much bigger but still not grocery store size.but I heard last year that potatoes are heavy feeders.i had a volunteer cucumber that came up with one of my buckets and it's doing well
I did 12 30gallon bags... 6 seed potatoes at 2 levels in each bag.. strong fertilizer routine with a mix of bonemeal, and organic liquid and granual fertilizers. I've harvested 4 bags so far and I'm SHOCKED! Easily 40 lbs.
I have a question when we just start planting tomato pepper and other vegetable How often should I give Jack fertilizer 2020& and bonemeal and organic fertilizer?
I did almost exactly the same thing except for I did not use organic potatoes. I started on probably later than you. They’re still growing good. I had one potato plant that the grasshoppers stripped all the leaves from I got three smaller potatoes and two normal size potatoes from one plant that was harvested prematurely.
Non-organic potatoes take more time to sprout. Organic potatoes start sprouting immediately since they aren't treated to last longer in storage. Ultimately, any potato can be planted once it has sprouted, but if you want to speed up the process, organic potatoes will be ready for seed faster on average.
@@TheMillennialGardener the only reason I did it I just didn’t wanna throw them away and I was being cheap and I bought 10 of the grow bags that you promote
@@tomspiers1658 Honestly that's how I ended up growing potatoes this year lol. I had three that sprouted so I went ahead and plunked them into a big grow bag. I think fertilizing them would have helped, because my first harvest was just a lot of little potatoes. But that was ok because there's just two of us in the house, so they made a nice batch of mashed potatoes for dinner. 🤣
Can you clarify the amount of water for growing in grow bags? I thought I needed to be so careful about not over watering but it seems they perhaps are too dry! :-)
I have bare root blackberries linked in my Amazon Storefront in the video description. They are the varieties I recommend. Ultimately, you should buy the varieties you want, so where you'll buy them will be limited to who carries the varieties you want.
When you switch the soil to something like sweet potatoes or lettuce after a potato harvest can you go back to potatoes after the season with the other crop or is that mix permanently contaminated to potatoes?
Duuuuude!! Nice!! I’m on my third succession starting in the CT greenhouse. Nothing better for potato salad the same day! So creamy! Happy for you. I’ll be on that 14 day fertilizer for now on. Thank you!
I was unable to reuse my soil since I didn't harvest my bags separately. I didn't return the soil to my bag after each harvest. I had 4 10 gallon bags and one of them had what looked like black ants with wings and the other bag had large red ants with what looked like two orange balls on their back. I got my potatoes either Costco or Sam's. They were seeding potatoes from the plant section. I did get a small harvest. I will definitely follow your lead next time
Semi related question. I have my containers elevated on crates and on a deck of my pond as it gets the best sun. I just harvested my 2 potato containers and planned to keep the soil to reuse, but both containers had ants!!!! No harm came to the potatoes, but I noticed my other containers (summer squash and tomatoes) also have ants in the soil!! Any advice on how to deal with ants without adding poison, as neem oil seems to make them mad, but they keep returning. Thanks for your videos!
Just down the road from you in Leland, first year with potatoes and experienced massive pest damage. This was in new soil and new bags. Going to fumigate the soil and try again next year. Any suggestions on pest control?
Hey Mr millennial Gardner! I’m a new Gardner and these multiple videos watched are confusing! I e already bought my neem and about to use on my shrubs not veggies. I will keep ur suggestions in mind for future but I already have my neem captain jack ready to apply, but I have a question for you or followers, I was planning on applying to my roots of infected plant so I don’t burn leaves in this NE GA JULY HEAT! I will apply to leaves on a cooler day. So does this method help future infestations on shrubs as the plant absorbs the neem oil spreading throughout entire plant??? Is this true? Thanks
I'm struggling with grow bags in AZ. It's soooo hot recently I can't tell if I'm watering enough, overwatering or if the heat isn't just overtaking everything. Potatoes are giving me trouble but I am not going to give up just yet. Sweet potatoes seem to do OK in beds but those struggle in my grow bags too. Even under shade cloth.
Grow bags will dry out more quickly than other kinds of containers, and much more quickly than the ground itself. Their aeration works against them in the hottest part of the summer. All you can do is install shade cloth overhead, mulch them and install drip irrigation to make your life easier.
Thanks! Dale is something. He is both incredibly athletic and a tremendous klutz. Sometimes, his acrobatics astound me, and other times he'll bump his head on the side of a table 😅
That was very impressive harvest. I love growing potatoes. Dale was very excited for that bunny. When my dog heard the squeaker she started barking can you answer a question for me? I planted asparagus for the first time this year and it grew, but I didn't realize it was all females. I did not harvest it. It's still in my garden. Should I tear it out? I keep reading about not growing females. Can I have your opinion please?
Asparagus takes 3 full years before you can harvest it. It takes a long time to get going. You shouldn't disturb it until the roots form. I don't know what the male-to-female ratio of my asparagus is, but whatever it is, it produces more than I need. I can only eat asparagus so many days in a row, and every day I had half a dozen spears popping up fresh. Eventually, I just had to eat them all raw and fresh. It's going to be tough to tell until they get going years from now.
Thanks Anthony! We had a great Yukon Gold harvest here on the southeast coast of Iowa. We planted 5 pounds of seed potatoes and got 62 pounds. Thumbs up. Hugs to Dale.
Very nice. After this confidence boost, maybe I'll try a larger potato next spring. I remember when potatoes were cheap...4 years ago. Now, it seems they have plated them with gold or something to suddenly cost an arm and a leg. I think Yukon Gold's are $7 a bag now!
Growing smaller varieties of potatoes are also easier. I’ve had mediocre results with russets. These potatoes grew great and came out a lot larger than the potatoes that went in. They make awesome fries.
Love your videos. When you calculate the additional fertilizer, etc, what was your total cost to produce, not counting water of course. Just curious. Thank you!
Not much. Honestly, fertilizer cost is a drop in the bucket. I buy 25 lb bags of 20-20-20 and 27-50lb bags of fertilizer, and I buy it off-season and store it so I never pay full price. I buy virtually no produce at grocery stores, so my costs are so low it doesn't really matter. I don't even bother calculating it. I just posted a deal for a 25lb bag of 20-20-20 for $56 shipped. That'll last most gardeners 2 years. That's honestly an irrelevant amount of money spread out over 2 years given the thousands of pounds of food I'll harvest over that time. Here is the community post: ru-vid.comUgkxHaGi6XAZqpS10GqowSjtKWj46-dZVUDj
Do you add all of the fertilizers at the same time, or do you give them 20-20-20 and fish emulsion on one day, then the granular and bone meal ten days later?
I had to laugh at your feet. At the end of the day, I wonder if my ankles have a farmers Tan or are just dirty. It's both, like yours, lol Love your high speed parts too, if only we could work that fast! Thanks for the info
You don't need to. My potatoes came out clean since they were in peat moss. If yours come out dirty, lay them down on a tarp to cure before storing them. The dirt will literally fall off onto the tarp. I don't recommend scrubbing them, because you can tear the skin and cause damage, which will impact their ability to store for long periods. If you wash them, you need to make 100% sure they dry completely before curing them.
@@TheMillennialGardener you just need to keep them out of the light. The grocery store I go to covers all the potatoes with a double layer of burlap sacks about 9 pm every night. Still good air circulation but little to no greening. At home I keep a kitchen towel over them and keep them away from the window light.
I think you could have buried deeper to start with to reduce the surface ones. Have some straw handy for covering the top. I had great success this year, my first, inspired by your 20 gallon grow bags.
A thank you for a bit of advice I have finally taken. My fig tree is about 3 feet tall and this year has chosen to fruit quite a bit. The first 5 successful figs have, of course, been snacked on by the local rodents/birds. Whipped out the organza bags I had intended for the plum tree that didn't fruit this year. I am now growing very charmingly dressed figs. Apricot colored evening wear on the lot of 'em. 😀
Wow. That’s amazing! I took your advice and am waiting to harvest my red potatoes and am waiting for my okinawan and Miyazaki to sprout. You were right. They are so sweet! :-)
I tried to grow some organic red potatoes earlier this year in 5 gallon buckets-Injad done it before and it was pretty easy, but this year, in spite of the leaves looking great, there were ZERO potatoes-I fertilized and everything. Have no idea what went wrong, but it was very disappointing.
It was likely a combination of the wrong fertilizers and not enough fertilizing. Simply fertilizing potatoes is not enough. You have to fertilize them often. In a 5 gallon bucket, since they drain and deplete so much, you may need to fertilize them every 7 days. The other problem with a strictly organic fertilizing routine is, what was the NPK of the fertilizers? Most organic fertilizers tend to be nitrogen-heavy, because nitrogen is cheap, and it's hard to find affordable sources of P and K. A nitrogen-heavy fertilizer will produce leaves, not potatoes. My guess is you gave them way too much nitrogen, not nearly enough P and K, and your fertilizer regime wasn't regular enough. I don't bother growing potatoes organically, because they don't do well organically, particularly in containers. Adding something like Jack's 20-20-20 will change your potato game. Jack's 20-20-20 mixed with fish emulsion and bone meal is the ticket for awesome potatoes.
Great harvest 👍👍. For years i have been growing potatoes in those exact bags, every year get 7-10lbs per bag. I use a loose soil and mix in happy frog bone meal and general purpose fertilizer. Then water every 10ish days with water soluble Sea Grow 4-26-26. It has never failed me, just harvested a bag of reds that produced 9.5lbs.
Here's my question, after the potatoes are done if im not growing any thing else, can i put the soil from the grow bags back in the compost? Till it in and add the other stuff like the leaves and cardboard and other stuff?
If you watch my harvest montage, I put all the soil right back into the bags. I will use them to grow something unrelated to potatoes that won't share residual diseases, such as lettuce, brassicas, roots, melons, etc. My container mix is full of peat and perlite, so it's expensive. I would not want to waste it by dumping it into a compost pile.
No, because I harvest my potatoes in June, so they're generally done before it gets too hot. Potatoes are the first "frost sensitive" crop I plant since they are buried deeply, and they are one of the first annuals I harvest. They are set out in full sun.
@@TheMillennialGardener oh the best part of Florida no shoveling snow. I was in southern New England, hated it, but snow shovel is great for moving compost.
An inconsequential amount. I buy fertilizer in bulk. I buy 25lb bags of water soluble fertilizer and 27-50lb bags of the organic fertilizers. I buy them off-season when they're on sale, and I stock them. A 25lb bag of water soluble 20-20-20 lasts me close to 2 years, so spreading it over my entire garden over 2 entire years doesn't really register with my wallet. Same thing with the organics. If you want to save money, don't buy 4lb bags of fertilizers. They're a waste. Get the really big bags and parse them out in 5 gallon buckets if the bags are too big for you to use. You'll cut your costs dramatically and it won't matter adding everything up. My biggest expense in my garden, by far, is compost and irrigation. Fertilizers are cheap.
I know your huge a math and ROI, just curious based on the amount of fertilizer your input, is the 19x return worth it? What were your no/low input yields 4x?
We have found just doing granular at planting and 10-14 day fish fertilizer does really well too, we did not weigh the yield though, I plan to keep track next time.
The old potato plants? I don't know how I'd even go about doing something like that, but anything that gets hot enough to kill bacteria and fungi would purify it.
I live in MS and my potatoes died back last week and when I went to harvest many were covered in insect damage and mushy. I lost more than half of my harvest. What can I do to prevent this next year?
It sounds like you overwatered them, or they were planted in soil that did not drain well. This is why I grow my potatoes in grow bags. Make a fast draining mix and mulch them well. Set up drip irrigation and irrigate them daily once the foliage establishes. As long as you don't overwater them, they won't rot.
@@TheMillennialGardener thank you for that tip! I’ll try to adjust watering next time. Do you think I have time to plant more this season? Our first frost is supposed to be November but we got hit with one October 3rd last year
That depends on where you live. I'm starting mine next week. If you live in a hotter climate, you may want to wait a few more weeks. If you live in a cold climate, you may be on borrowed time and need to start ASAP.
First, you need to start with a larger variety of potato. Potatoes vary in size. I chose to grow a smaller potato variety, so the result were smaller to medium-sized potatoes. If you want large potatoes, pick something like Yukon Gold or Russet, but be advised you'll need to feed them more and over a longer period of time, since they'll have longer days to maturity.
You can buy any bag of potatoes you want and sprout them. Organic potatoes usually sprout more easily. I bought my bag at Trader Joe's, but it doesn't really matter where you get them.
The mix was added back to the bags and will be re-used, but not immediately for potatoes again. If pathogens exist in the soil, giving them the same host will keep them alive. You want to rotate your crops and plant something unrelated to potatoes so they can't attach to the host. You can plant potatoes in them again a year or so from now if you grew other things in those bags unrelated to potatoes.
Something is wrong with the system. I would guess you’re using the wrong types of fertilizer. You need heavy P and K, low nitrogen. Too much compost produces poor tubers. It could also be you underwatered or overwatered, causing die off of the seed potatoes.
@@TheMillennialGardener Happy Frog (sanitized by cooking weeks before use), Alaska Fish fertilizer+ bone meal+0-0-60 potash. Watering done via inverted glass bottle. Never gets too much or too little water that way. Used moisture meter to test for water. Compost only the bottom 2 " got it as a precautionary item. They get 10-12 hours or so of full sun too. I have never ever got more potatoes worth out of what I spent to grow them. Last year same thing but got a whole $1 worth of tiny potatoes (about 10 of them). At least this year I have two potatoes worth baking anyway. Dang potatoes cost more than a prime cut of steak. Several steaks actually.
Thanks for respecting your viewers' time. Not naming names, but I don't see the point of bountiful harvest (eight or more varieties of luscious tomatoes, etc.) videos. They are demoralizing to the average gardener. Another beef is videos that repeat the same information several times using the same language--we're not children. Your videos are reasonably concise and on point.
5 gallon bags are really small for potatoes. I recommend a minimum of 20 gallon. 25's are even better. Containers deplete and wash out very quickly, so if you're only going to use a 5 gallon bag, you need to fertilize them at least weekly. You'd also likely need to use something like a water soluble 20-20-20, because the containers aren't efficient enough to break down organic fertilizers. When container gardening, I always mix the organics with 20-20-20, because the microbiome just isn't there to break down organics fast enough for the plants. If you switch to larger containers and give them 20-20-20 mixed with organics, it will change things.
It doesn’t sound like it was well fertilized. Potatoes are heavier feeders than you think, and they respond poorly to nitrogen. Giving them only compost and organics may yield beautiful foliage, but poor tuber production. I’m guessing they were very underfed in P and K. The secret to my system is Jack’s 20-20-20 and bone meal.
@TheMillennialGardener I had some of that. I also use bone meal. I have to be careful of right ratios it seems, but def feed more. I am determined to grow some potatoes! #won'tstop🤣 Thanks for all you do👍
