Halloween time seems like a good time to share my mutant potatoes. These strange and scary potatoes were grown in my garden this year. I was so surprised when I dug them up and discovered how they had grown into these strange-looking shapes.
I found out that these potatoes were stressed and that is what caused them to grow so strangely. There is a good article here about the reasons and how to avoid this from happening. Apparently lack of rain, hot weather and not enough watering are the main reasons that you can end up with potatoes looking like these do.
When this happens your harvest will be much smaller as the potatoes didn’t grow and spread out like they should have. When the potatoes are dry for too long, it causes
It was time today to harvest my potatoes that I have been growing in my round cylinder with straw. This was an experiment this season that I learned from some gardening friends on-line. They had told me about how you could grow potatoes in straw rather than in the ground.
Using a piece of fencing, I made a round cylinder. I planted one seed potato cut into 4 parts with each piece having an eye that sprouted. I placed the potato seeds on top of a small dirt mound and put the fencing around it. I wrapped a piece of burlap around the bottom to hold in the plants and moisture. Then I covered it with a thin layer of straw as the seeds sprouted. The above picture was taken in July when the potatoes were still growing. You just add a bit of straw to cover the plants as they grow. You do leave the tops exposed.
Here is a photo when it was first growing.
Once the tops flower and die, you know it’s about time to harvest your potatoes. My potatoes were at the bottom of the straw at the top of the dirt. I’m thinking that I started them too late which may have been why they didn’t grow more up into the straw.
Here is my harvest. I know it probably doesn’t look like much but this was just one small seed potato that I used. Next year, I will start earlier and plant more potatoes so my bounty is bigger. But overall I was happy with the results of growing the potatoes in straw.
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