today we got the first section of our new dream garden planted and the first
warm weather crop to go in the ground every year is potatoes now we're down
here in South Georgia in zone 8b and our ideal potato planting time is anywhere
from Valentine's Day or the middle of February to the end of February
typically you want to plant potatoes anywhere from two to three weeks before
your last frost state now we have in the past got a little you know adventurous
with this and planting them a little too early before and we get a frost come in
towards the end of February and it really stuns those plants back so we try
to be careful not to plant them too early but try to squeeze them in that
window there between the middle of February and the end of February so I've
got my seed potato pieces here and we always cut up our seed potatoes because
they go farther and because of the size of potatoes that we're trying to get so
if you plant a whole potato you're probably going to get more potatoes but
they're all going to be small if you cut them up and reduce the number of eyes
that you're planting in a certain spot you'll get those nice big potatoes that
we all want we like to cut up our seed potato several days before we intend on
planting them because we want to give that open wound or that skin there time
to heal over or suberize and that's going to prevent any fungal diseases or
help prevent any rot and once we put them in the soil now a common
misconception is that the size of this seed potato piece has something to do
with how bountiful your crops going to be and that's simply not true but what
really matters is the number of eyes as you have per piece and you usually want
about two to four eyes per piece that's going to give you enough for a good
plant but it's not going to be so many eyes that you get a lot of overcrowding
end up with small potatoes these things don't need a huge piece of potato to
feed off of they're just feeding off this long enough until they can get some
roots established and some leaves coming up out of the ground today we planted
four varieties of potatoes and these are the same four varieties that we carry on
our website we've got the Red Norland which is a red skin potato with a white
meat we've got the Adirondack Blue which is a purple skin potato with a kind of
blueish purple meat we've got the Yukon Gold which is a tan
skin potato with the yellow meat and then the German Butterball which is
another tan skin potato with a little more yellow or meat than the Yukon Gold
one thing to consider when you're planting several different varieties of
potatoes is that they're going to have different maturity dates these red
potatoes here the red Norlin or what a lot of people call new potatoes are
going to mature a lot faster than this later variety or this German Butterball
so when you're planting these make sure you understand that you might dig some
of these a lot faster then you'll dig these others in this case you might dig
this German Butterball a month later than you dig this Red Norland or new
potato in the first square of my dream garden behind me here is where I planted
my potatoes all of my squares are 30 by 35 feet and the first thing I want to do
was lay off all my rows and I was able to squeeze in 10 rows of potatoes in
this 30 by 35 spot as far as row spacing goes on potatoes I like to plant them 3
foot apart now I've tried to skirt that and plant two or two-and-a-half feet
apart in the past and you just don't leave yourself enough dirt in the middle
to heal them up properly you can certainly plant them four foot apart or
five foot apart nothing wrong with that but to maximize this space right here I
plant them three foot apart and got ten rows in here so the first thing I did
was I got my measuring tape so I could lay out for my rows are gonna be
I got mistakes out and I put a stake or either a mark at the end of each row and
that gives me something to drive to with my wheel hoe to make sure I get all my
rows relatively straight then it was time to let the wheel hoe make things
easy for us so I took my double wheel hoe with my plow set in the furrowing
position and ran along where I had marked off there made me a nice little
furrow for planting these potatoes plows that makes the furrow about three to
four inches deep in the soil depending on how hard or soft your dirt is it's a
really nice furrow for laying down seed potatoes for those ten furrows or those
ten rows are created I wanted to plant two rows of Red Norland two rows of
Adirondack Blue and then three rows of Yukon Gold and three rows
German Butterball because the Yukon Gold and the German Butterball are my
favorites so I laid those little seed potato pieces some of which had already
sprouted a little bit down in that furrow there and I spaced some guys out
about six to eight inches apart along that furrow and I like to push them down
in that furrow a little bit to make sure they stay in the right position and
don't get turned over when I come behind and throw dirt on top of them so I
planted these potatoes sequentially based on maturity dates so I planted the
Red Norland first then the Adirondack Blue then the Yukon Gold then
the German Butterball and that way I can dig one row at a time as they mature and
I'm not making a mess on the other rows as I'm waiting on those to get ready
once we had our seed potatoes stuck down in those furrows it was time once again
to let the Wheel Hoe make things easy for us so I took my High Arch Wheel Hoe because I
already had some plows on there in the hilling position which is what we need
for covering up these potatoes and I just went down there and zipped up those
rows and covered up those potatoes real nice so they'll be able to grow up
through that soil and then we can keep hitting them as they grow if you get
tired of planting the same old red potatoes over and over every year I want
you branch out and give some of these other varieties to try these purple
potatoes some of these yellow potatoes are really tasty and they complement
those red varieties really well and if you grow a vegetable garden and you're
not using a Wheel Hoe to plant potatoes what are you thinking I'll put some
links in the description below so you can check those out get set up and be
planting potatoes faster than you ever have I hope you enjoyed this video we'll
see you next time