{"id":521,"date":"2016-03-10T09:04:41","date_gmt":"2016-03-10T14:04:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/?p=521"},"modified":"2016-03-10T09:10:04","modified_gmt":"2016-03-10T14:10:04","slug":"its-tater-plantin-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/its-tater-plantin-time\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s Tater-Plantin&#8217; Time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!\u00a0 My favorite gardening time is when it&#8217;s time to plant taters (that&#8217;s &#8220;potatoes&#8221; to all you non-southern folk).\u00a0 Potato planting always marks the start of the serious gardening season for me.<\/p>\n<p>According to my handy-dandy planting guide from the North Carolina Department of Agriculture, potatoes can be put into the ground here in the western part of the state beginning in early March.\u00a0 According to my equally handy-dandy Farmer&#8217;s Almanac though, the best days for planting root crops in March is between the 24th and the 28th.\u00a0 And I do believe in planting by the phase of the moon.\u00a0 There&#8217;s usually a pretty good reason for most folklore so I&#8217;m faithfully planting according to the Farmer&#8217;s Almanac.<\/p>\n<p>I ordered three varieties of seed potatoes from <a href=\"https:\/\/sowtrueseed.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Sow True Seed<\/a>, a really cool seed company located in Asheville, North Carolina.\u00a0 I ordered Kennebec, Pontiac Red and Austrian Fingerling.<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_507\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-507\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_0274-e1457563073313.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-507\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-507 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_0274-e1457563073313-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"Seed potatoes - chitted and ready to plant\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 225px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 225\/300;\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-507\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Seed potatoes &#8211; chitted and ready to plant<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>I chitted the potatoes (that means putting them in a warm, well lit spot to let the eyes develop into sprouts).\u00a0 About a week before planting, I will cut the larger seed potatoes into two pieces.\u00a0 This way I get more potato plants and, therefore, more potatoes.\u00a0 Once cut, the seed potatoes need that week&#8217;s time to &#8220;heal over&#8221; on the cut area to prevent them from rotting in the ground.\u00a0 Then all you do is plant and anticipate!<\/p>\n<p>Plant.\u00a0 Hhmm . . . that&#8217;s a problem here on this little half acre of rock.\u00a0 There&#8217;s no soil and all my raised bed areas are already spoken for with other vegetables.\u00a0 With enough time, soil can be built up but I don&#8217;t have time because I want potatoes NOW!\u00a0 The solution?\u00a0 Straw bale gardening.\u00a0 There&#8217;s an excellent book on the subject named &#8211; appropriately enough &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Straw-Bale-Gardens-Complete-Karsten\/dp\/1591869072\" target=\"_blank\">Straw Bale Gardening Complete<\/a>, by Joel\u00a0\u00a0 Karsten.\u00a0 I&#8217;m going to try this method for the first time with a few different vegetables, including potatoes.<\/p>\n<p>According to the author, potatoes do exceptionally well in straw bales.\u00a0 And there seem to be several advantages for employing this method.\u00a0 First, you have instant &#8220;soil&#8221; because most vegetables grow quite well in this medium.\u00a0 Second, harvesting is simple.\u00a0 As the straw bale decomposes, you simply cut the baling string and pick up clean, dirt free potatoes.\u00a0 The third (and most important to me) advantage is that after the harvest I can add the decomposing bales to my compost pile or add them to the existing raised beds or (my plan) leave them right where they are and add compost and leaves over the fall and winter to form the basis for next year&#8217;s new raised beds.<\/p>\n<p>Here are the straw bales for my potatoes.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve located them on a sunny, southwest facing slope that gets sun almost all day.\u00a0 I will begin &#8220;conditioning&#8221; the bales in a few more days.\u00a0 According to Mr. Karsten in his book, this process takes about twelve days and it starts the decomposition of the bales.\u00a0 The decomposing bales are a medium that the potatoes thrive in.\u00a0 Sounds easy enough.\u00a0 Anyone out there who has tried this method, please chime in &#8211; I&#8217;d love to hear your thoughts!<\/p>\n<figure id=\"attachment_512\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-512\" style=\"width: 225px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_0279-e1457562783732.jpg\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-512\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-512 lazyload\" data-src=\"https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_0279-e1457562783732-225x300.jpg\" alt=\"Bales are ready for conditioning\" width=\"225\" height=\"300\" data-srcset=\"https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_0279-e1457562783732-225x300.jpg 225w, https:\/\/thelittlehalfacre.com\/staging\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/IMG_0279-e1457562783732.jpg 750w\" data-sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" src=\"data:image\/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==\" style=\"--smush-placeholder-width: 225px; --smush-placeholder-aspect-ratio: 225\/300;\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-512\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Bales are ready for conditioning<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Stay tuned and we&#8217;ll keep you posted on our progress!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy!\u00a0 My favorite gardening time is when it&#8217;s time to plant taters (that&#8217;s &#8220;potatoes&#8221; to all you non-southern folk).\u00a0 Potato planting always marks&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_editorskit_title_hidden":false,"_editorskit_reading_time":0,"_editorskit_is_block_options_detached":false,"_editorskit_block_options_position":"{}","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[24,25],"class_list":["post-521","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-gardening","tag-straw-bale-gardening","tag-straw-bale-gardens"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>It&#039;s Tater-Plantin&#039; 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