First Bloom: The potato plants blossom

The potato plant's first blossom can't be described as anything else but intriguing cute flowers that consists of light pink petals with bright yellow middles.

Budding Potato Plant

The little buds of flowers have begun to appear on a couple of my potato plants which tells me that it won't be all that long until I'll get to harvest some spuds.  My goal for the potato plants is to harvest mature potatoes which means shortly after the flowers bloom the leaves of the plant will begin to yellow and whither at which point I am to cut watering completely for two weeks and then it should be ready to be dug out.

On my first attempt at growing potatoes I dug out the potato plant too soon, much too soon, and all I got was four little, tiny spuds, and when I say "little tiny" I mean truly "teeny tiny".  And this is how I learned the importance of allowing the potato plant to go its course for two weeks without watering, I found myself more and more impatient with the first potato plant- I would just look at those yellow dried up leaves and think 'those potatoes need to come out!' But I was wrong of course, so this time, I am determined to allow the plant to sit for 2 weeks once the leaves begin to yellow and whither.

Mushrooms Growing Around My Potato Plant!

I love mushrooms just as much a the next person hates them, but c'mon!  There's something definitely wrong with this picture.  I woke up and was doing my daily check on all my plants and stopped short when I saw that one of my potato plants was surrounded by mushrooms, quite disgusting really.  Am I watering them too much?  It seems to be the first thing that comes to mind, afterall mushrooms love damp moist places right?

Well I simply couldn't just let the mushrooms sit there crowding around the potato plant now could I? The thought of touching the mushrooms was unbearable and even though what I really wanted to do was walk away and pretend none of this was happening, I kneeled down on my knees like a good little girl and got to it, they were moist,  slimy and really, really gross.  And then when I managed to take off all the mushroom growing around the stem I realized the root was still in the ground (pictured below) so to make matters worse I had to dig the mushroom base out, ugh. 

So I've come to the conclusion that the potato plant can do with less watering and more dry time, slowly the mushrooms seem to be going away, they only pop up every now and again- that has to be a good sign, I just hope the potatoes themselves have not been affected by all this, then again, maybe I should brace myself during harvesting time for mushroom laden potatoes.

Getting The Most Out Of Your Potatoes By Challenging

If there is any vegetable in your growing garden that loves a good challenge it'll be the potatoes. Challenging your potatoes to make even more potatoes by 'hilling' is a common practice.  The process is very simple and goes something like this...

1.  Plant your potatoes and watch them grow

Once your potato plants grow to about 8inches to 1foot above the ground...

2. Mound soil 3/4 of the way up along the stem (as pictured below)

Eventually the potato plant will grow new shoots underneath the buried portion allowing more potatoes to sprout, hence the popular economical aspect of potatoes.

Read the previous post, DIY Potatoes In A Bottomless Planter Box

DIY: Potatoes In A Bottomless Planter Box

A week ago I dug a trench in part of the yard to plant potatoes in, it was literally a trench which consisted of a bottom with sides that sloped upwards toward mounds of dirt.  I made holes for my already sprouting potatoes that I had kept for a little too long in the kitchen, watered them in and covered them up with soil.  As I watered them through the week I came upon the annoying situation of the mounds of dirt slowly crumbling into the potato trench.  So when the next weekend rolled by I went immediately to crazy work mode and built a bottomless box to: 1. Keeping the unecessary dirt out, 2. Create an easier time for me to hill whence the time came, and 3. Keeping the yard looking nice and organized.

Let me get back to "hilling" just incase you have no idea what that means.  Hilling is basically mounding dirt around the growing stem of the potato plant.  Pictured below (where the little orange arrows are) you can see the stem and leaves of the potato plant pushing out the through the soil, once the potato plant reaches about 8-12 inches you simply mound dirt to cover 2/3 of the stem, you keep repeating this process until the potato flowers appears at which point you know the potatoes are almost ready to be pulled out, but not quite, because you have to wait for the leaves and flower to whither and turn yellow before you do so.  The whole idea is (well it's not really an idea since it really does occur) is that hilling creates more space for more potatoes to appear, the covered portion of the stem in the process of hilling allows more potatoes to form on the stem covered by the dirt.  "Hilling" is also called "challenging".

So in an effort to make it easier for the hilling process and because of the annoying excess mounds of dirt crumbling into my potato space I gathered 5 pieces of wood and a few nails to build a box to enclose the potato trench in.  I was pretty pleased with myself once the work was done :)  You can make it easier on yourself and simple grab two long boards for the long side and 2 short boards for the short sides and nail them to create a box frame that has neither top or bottom, in my case however I hadn't two long boards, just 5 medium length boards and so went on to make a long rectangular frame that way; by nailing to medium boards at the ends to creat one long board (doing the same for the other long side), then cutting in half the remaining medium board to create two shorter boards for the short sides, I then nailed it into a box frame.  It did turn out mighty fine if I do say so myself.

Read the following post on Getting The Most Out Of Your Potatoes By Challenging