# how many potatoes to plant?



## farmboyJD (Jul 21, 2011)

Wife wants to plant potatoes. I remember how my mother would cut out the eyes from a potato and get them started in a cup of water in the window sill. But I really have no clue as to how many to plant in a small garden, or how much one plant will produce. Suggestions?


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## rancher1913 (Dec 5, 2008)

depends on how strong a back you have. the planting is easy----the harvesting is hard. we plant several hundred pounds every year and feed the whole neighborhood but we also have a potato planter and digger that works with our tractor. some years we have a huge harvest some years we barly get by. a single eye should prodduce around a gallon of potatoes. potatoes don't like to be sprinkled they prefer flood. sprinkling will work if you use fungicides .


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## Sanza (Sep 8, 2008)

Well it also depends on how much room you have in the garden, how much you like eating potatoes, and how much cold storage you have.
I've never tried cutting the eyes out but I have had success with digging a trench and spreading potato peelings, usually there's enough potatos left to use whole ones. The trench works faster for me because I can hill up one side and then the other instead of individual hills.


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## tinknal (May 21, 2004)

Lots of good potato threads in the gardening forum.


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## fffarmergirl (Oct 9, 2008)

Ah hates diggin' taters!


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

I plant 4 rows 40 feet long, each potatoe set about 12 inches apart. Kennabecks. I get about 300 lbs. I also plant Reds and Russian fingerlings. 400 lbs last us thru the winter. I cann some and store the rest in boxes in the pantry. It's cool/cold in the pantry,cement floor.

I have a hard time diggen taters too,my back,so I sit on the ground. I can get the potato fork under them without stabbing them.


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## jamala (May 4, 2007)

I plant 4 100' rows yukon gold, basic white, and some fingerlings. In a good year we keep the neighbors in taters and I can around 100 quarts and all the fresh eating we need. We dig ours using the superA tractor or an old fashiond plow pulled by the 4 wheeler since the horse died.


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## GREENCOUNTYPETE (Jul 25, 2006)

how many do you want?

if you have good soil and water well they are about a 1:10 venture so plant 5 pounds if you want 50 

i find a 20-25 foot row with seed potatoes cut so that there are 2 eyes on every cutting spaced about 6 inches apart takes around 3-5 pounds of seed depending on the size and number if eyes on each seed potato.
when in at full growth the plants will cover an area about 3 feet wide 
i space my rows about 3-4 feet apart and use the furrower on my tiller to leave a 8 inch deep trench or there about and hoe the dirt on them as they grow when they are to full size they cover the space in between the rows.


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## anniew (Dec 12, 2002)

I plant potatoes in raised beds. In two 4 X 6 beds, I got 50 pounds of Kennebec last season. I put in chunks of potatoes with good eyes in them and put in three rows of 6 pieces each in each bed. Besides being easy to plant (not especially deep, maybe 4 inches), it is extremely easy to "dig." Actually, if you use a peat-lite mix like they use to start transplants, you can use your hands to "dig" them out.


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## 7thswan (Nov 18, 2008)

Guess I should mention that I hill the taters 2 ,mostly 3 times. And hand squish potato bugs before they take over.


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## farmboyJD (Jul 21, 2011)

Thanks all. My mother gardened all her life, and taught her children, but its been nearly 40 years since I really helped her, and just don't remember a lot of the important small details. But I realize that if I don't teach and encourage my city wife, we won't have much of a garden.


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