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Eric: So today we are going to hill our potatoes. Earlier in the year, I put in two rows of potatoes. I got the potatoes from a Moose Tubers which is part of FedCo and it was a really wet day and I was not really thinking I just threw into quick rows here.
These kinds are onaways (Inaudible) which I can remember what that is but I will look it up and tell you and these are corollas. One of these is a late ripening and the other one is a mid season ripener and the way I grow potatoes you basically you stick them into the ground like this deep and I planted the whole spuds. I did not cut them up.
You can cut them up, I did not do that because I am not planting really long rows and I have a half pound each of potatoes. You can also just go to grocery store and buy them and throw them in the ground. They do not necessarily grow as well.
Sometimes they might but they all should have those little ear things that are growing off of them. Those little knobby things those are actually the roots and the stems that are going to grow out of the potato.
So I stuck those in and I put it in about three inches down and they come up this high. To grow potatoes, to get them to send out a little shoots to grow new potatoes, you have to do what is called hilling and with a raised bed system like this, I am going to wrap this area with some chicken wire. I have got some chicken wire here.
We found this on the street. Someone has thrown it out and it is three foot wire so I do cut it into an 18 inch width pieces because basically you want ideally hill this to about six inches and then when these grow up again hill them another six inches. So we will see what happens here.
So I am going to gut my sticks here. I am going to build a little thing and then we are going to add in much. You can hill with any kind of material you want. You can use dirt, you can use shredded leaves, and you can use grass, grass clippings. We are going to use this stuff called Manley mulch which is hay that is been degermanated. Basically chop it up and bake it to kill all the weed seeds which I think it is pretty neat.
Female: What? Her name is Henry.
Eric: Rule number two do not do this with a dog around.
Female: You said that thing about the spuds and the knobby thing? So everybody knows that because we potatoes in a jar when are kids and watch them grow right?
Eric: In addition to hilling with potatoes we are dog proofing a garden. Oh by the way tend to have some tin snips to cut the chicken wire just to make it clean. You also notice that we have our drip irrigation and we are going to leave that in because it is where just going to hill on top of that and the roots are down in the soil so this is perfect. This is perfect for watering them.
Later on and the season we are going to have to deal with then Colorado potato beetles and I bought some spray from FedCo and I will write about that because I cannot really remember how to put it on right now. I have to read the instructions.
But they are a big problem, I believe that just after the potatoes flower, you can cover them with that our grow fabric that white row fabric we call it remay and that will keep the beetles off as well. So we will play with that.
That is the label it says what the potatoes are.
Female: What kind of potatoes are they?
Eric: They are corollas.
Female: Okay give to her.
Eric: Are you going to remember that?
Female: No, it is on film.
Eric: Stop eating the bed. That is compacted is it not? It is like really, really packed in here. I thought I could maybe just dump it in but I think you have to fluff it in what do you think? Pick up the big bulk and go like that.
If you want to cover this, you want to cover the bottom six inches of the potato plants. So this is what I have got accomplished. I use the whole bulk on that stuff in here and you have top fluff it up, it comes out really compacted. You just kind of shake it but I think that is going to be neat and you got to knock it off the leaves obviously. There is only a couple of casualties from the hay, knocking them down now these plants will throw out, they called stolens or roots or they will throw out these things that go the side here and that is where your potatoes will grow. Also there are starting to flower as well. You can see down here. That is the flower of the potato.
And these will flower, the bees will be here and they will be all happy. We will have to watch out for is the potato beetles. We might cover them, we might spray them, and we will have to see but we will give an update on that.
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