Today, we planted nearly 100 potatoes - blue potatoes, yukon gold, and red potatoes! We purchased the potatoes from Morgan County Seeds several weeks ago and waited to plant them. During that time, they formed beautiful sprouts that reminded us of tiny sea anemones. When preparing to plant potatoes, we learned that you want to cut the potato into pieces that have about 2-3 sprouts per piece. Then, you let the potato pieces sit in a paper bag for about 2 days to form a skin.
When we cut into the blue potatoes, they were an awesome, deep amethyst color. We can't wait to have blue/purple mashed potatoes! The Yukon Gold potatoes had the most vibrant golden flesh! We have never thought of potatoes being colorful or aesthetically beautiful; however, we always enjoy eating them! Farming is definitely bringing us a deeper sense of appreciation for the form, color, and smells of the food we grow.
The hardest part of planting potatoes is digging the 6" trench that the potatoes require for growing. It has not rained for about a week and the ground was pretty hard. We put some serious muscle into preparing a nice bed for these potatoes to grow, but we are hopeful they will do well. After digging an 80 foot trench, we decided to start a savings fund for a tractor! We also decided to experiment by digging a row of 6" holes in order to see if it makes there is a difference in potato growth. Thankfully, our faithful, farm dog also helped us dig the holes! ;)
We dropped the potatoes in the trench and covered them with about 4" of compost. As a part of the growing process, we will have to mound up more dirt and compost as the potatoes grow. We can't wait to see what happens!
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