- Two dudes, two drills, 200 potatoes.
Join us in this Garden With Us episode
as we plant these potatoes for fall.
(drill whirs)
All right, Jacques, we have a boatload of potatoes.
You ordered some, I ordered some.
Guys, if it's not the time to plant potatoes for you,
this is a Garden With Us episode
where you can do whatever you want.
Garden, not garden, take a walk, take a shower,
start some seeds, plant some potatoes.
Let's grab some of these, Jacques,
and talk about the wonderful, the magical potato,
my personal favorite,
it's in my top three vegetables of all time.
- It's definitely my top eating vegetable.
- Is it? - Yeah.
I absolutely go crazy for potatoes.
- He's put down potatoes like no one's business.
- But yeah, I think we accidentally triple dipped
here on potatoes. - Yes.
- Got a little bit much.
So we got some Wood Prairie Farms,
and they're a small family farm up in Maine
that grows like really delicious potatoes,
like they tend to talk more about the flavor, the variety.
- Varieties you would've never really heard of,
so there's your Yukon Golds, there's your Norland Reds.
But take a look at this, Sarpo Mira.
Tell us about this.
- I think that one was like, either for a Polish,
or I can't remember if it was Polish or Hungarian,
but it was like some queen,
it was some secret potato grown only for them.
It's apparently like so absolutely delicious
that it's beyond comprehension.
So we know we have to grow those.
- I'm here to lose comprehension.
(Jacques laughs)
I mean look at this.
- That's a cute little tatty.
- It's a cute little tatty.
None of these get too big.
So let's talk first about how potatoes grow, Jacques,
as we kind of unbox these.
- Unboxing potatoes. So here's a a big boy.
So generally, with seed potatoes,
you want to grow something about the size of a egg,
like a large egg.
So something like this,
it's probably closer to like three or four eggs,
and you would generally cut it up into little pieces,
but it's technically optional.
You will get a better yield of potatoes if you cut it,
'cause they won't crowd as much.
- Yes, so we have this one right here,
this is German Butterball, one that I'm excited about,
this you would not slice up.
This one you would just let go.
And the reason why is because potatoes have eyes on them.
So there's these little indentations
that that's where you're gonna start
to see the initial shoots come out of as the potatoes chit,
or really just sort of the British way of saying sprout.
I don't know how that kind of came about.
But generally two to three eyes per section.
So on the small potatoes,
that's just the whole potato. - Exactly.
- You don't have to cut it open.
So if you wanted to, what you'd do is you'd come in
with a sharp knife, and you'd want to isolate,
I mean this one's big enough, Jacques,
this could be probably three chunks.
- Yeah, I don't see that many eyes though.
- Yeah, I see, let's see.
One, two, sometimes it's hard to split.
I might split this one almost just like this,
down the middle. - I think so too.
- Okay, so let's do that.
- And then there's the option,
some people like to let them dry over after you cut it.
It's not necessarily required.
If you're like in a wetter climate,
you might want to do that to avoid it from rotting.
But here in San Diego,
we're probably not gonna get much rain,
so we don't really have to let that dry over.
- Yeah, so you could just let this scab,
as Jacques is mentioning,
or I could just toss these in as is.
And unless we got a ton of rain, like you mentioned,
it won't rot out.
So these ones, big enough to cut in half.
But a lot of the varieties
that we have today are relatively small guys.
So Jacques, we have a ton of space,
but also probably more potatoes
than we can plant in this space.
So first let's talk spacing.
It's the most critical,
because these are gonna be growing underground,
and some potatoes set a little bit more than the others,
so you really need to understand the varieties
so you don't get a lower yield.
- Yeah, exactly, usually they'll describe them
as heavy setters, and if they're a heavy setter,
you want to go a little bit wider on spacing,
like 15 to 18 inches apart.
Otherwise you can pretty much get away with
just a foot apart and that's gonna be totally fine.
- That's what I've noticed.
And we'll do potatoes in a raised bed later on in the video.
But when I grew them in a five gallon bucket,
when I grew them in a grow bag,
and when I grew them in a raised bed,
I opted for roughly a foot apart as well.
And look, spacing is more of an art than a science.
You can go closer and it will affect the yield,
but you'll still get potatoes.
You can go further and of course then you're just
kind of growing one potato in isolation.
- Right, and it might also just make them bigger or smaller.
You kinda get to play around with it a little bit.
- So why don't we do this, Jacques, just for a visual.
Let's take a couple Prairie Blush,
so here's two for you and I'll take two,
and let's lay them out how you would actually plant them in.
So if we did a block over here
of just the Prairie Blush, what we do,
let's try going up. - We skip a line.
- So you'd skip a line, you go one here, one here,
and then one here, and one here.
And that's a decent potato spacing.
Now if you wanted to get a little fancier
and cram in some more,
you wouldn't probably go straight back.
You could actually do the triangle offset
where you're boom, boom, boom,
and it actually gives you enough space to put one right here
without messing with your spacing too much.
So what do you think?
I mean, I think we should lay out,
cut the ones we need to cut,
pick the varieties we need to pick.
Whatever we don't get to plant,
we'll just go put 'em in the front yard.
- Yeah, and then we can just drill all these guys in.
- Yeah, the power planter,
critical to potato planting success.
You know what, I think you're gonna be excited,
'cause I don't think you know that I bought this.
- Oh. - All blue.
- I wonder if they actually taste really good.
Have you ever had an all blue potato?
- I had one yesterday, literally yesterday.
- Just a little snack?
- Yeah, just a little snacky, and it tasted quite good.
Here, I'll cut it open.
Ooh! - That cancer fighting?
- Yeah, those anthocyanins, my friends, look at that.
- That's a handsome potato.
- Yeah, it's a beautiful, beautiful looking potato.
So I'm gonna leave this one out,
'cause we probably don't actually need to do it that way.
So here's two more all blues.
- Perfect. - I'll put this right here.
We'll save this guy, I'll just put it right here for now.
Okay, next up we've got Yellow Finn.
Have you ever grown that?
- No, I think it was described
as actually being a very nice frying potato.
I'm gonna guess it's close to like a Yukon Gold.
Let's take a look.
Yeah, it's got like a similar color.
- Yeah, nice looking.
I've got Kennebec here.
- That's a classic French fry potato.
- Kennebec, we're gonna make some fries.
We're gonna be planting a little bit more
of these than the average.
You know what I'm saying? (Jacques laughs)
- So I've got the three of the Yellow Finn,
and I need one more Huckleberry then, at least.
- So Baltic Rose looks like, pretty nice looking,
kind of a standard looking potato here.
What's interesting is the quality of these seed potatoes,
I have to say, it's like second to none.
Like they just look incredible.
- Yeah, so this farm, I only chose the varieties
that were listed as having exceptional eating quality.
Because that's what I'm here for.
- He's growing for flavor, 24/7.
So there's, this is Baltic Rose.
This is a red potato from Germany with a deep golden flesh.
Excellent fried or roasted.
So Jacques, I don't want to cause any trauma,
but I do have a potato in here
that neither of us really had success with.
And you're gonna know it
the second I pull it out of the case.
- Got a finger-like look to it.
Is that a Russian? - Russian banana?
Russian banana. - So this one is a,
if I remember correctly, the only thing I remember was
that this is a long season potato.
- It takes a long time to grow.
- Took like four months. - Long time to grow.
Actually let's, for that reason,
why don't we put it over in a corner?
Let's take it in a corner.
We have a few more to put in the ground here,
and then we'll head out to the front
and toss some in the raised beds.
(relaxed music)
We have them perfectly laid out.
I have to say, Jacques,
they look incredible. - Stunning.
- All we need to do is just sink them down into the ground.
So we're gonna use our overly complicated tools here,
and get 'em in.
For you, Jacques,
how do you think about depth with your potatoes?
- I've honestly had a hard time with that one.
I feel like I don't know how much it matters.
I don't hill the potatoes.
I've tried hilling and not hilling,
I feel like I've seen no real difference.
- I grew potatoes.
Yeah, I mean I grew potatoes nearly every way that you can,
reasonably speaking, and I will say raised bed, no hill,
versus raised bed hill, very minimal difference.
Very minimal difference.
So I kind of determined that maybe just drilling them down
or digging them down deeper to start is the hilling.
And then you just don't even have to deal with it.
- The only difference is you're gonna have
to go searching for those potatoes a little bit more.
- Exactly. Exactly.
- So we're gonna shoot for about six inches?
- Yeah, about six or so. - Okay.
- I'll just offset you by a little bit here.
(drill whirs)
- [Jacques] I love just picking up the drill
with all the soils on it. - I know, it's so satisfying.
(upbeat folksy music)
For those of you gardeners with a little bit less space,
this section is for you, the raised bed potato action.
Have you done 'em in raised beds before?
- No, but that's what I'm going to be doing
with most of mine, 'cause I'm gonna be adding a bunch
of raised beds to my garden and they're a pioneer crop,
so perfect. - They're a pioneer crop, yes.
Pioneer crop, meaning you don't really
need to give 'em much in the way of fertilizer,
or honestly even attention as long as they get ample water.
And so here, it's the Sarpo Miras again,
the queen's potato from maybe Bulgaria, maybe Romania,
I guess we'll have to look it up.
Either way, a fantastic one.
And we're gonna go in with, I don't even know,
just probably about five, around the middle or so.
So Jacques, when you're doing your potatoes,
I mean have you had a,
have you had like a really sort of banger potato year ever?
- I honestly haven't had a banger.
Had decent harvest, but I've only now,
so far grown them in grow bags.
- Oh really? - So I've never actually,
I actually have grown once in ground, but that failed.
- And why do you think it failed?
- That was poor irrigation.
It's always poor irrigation for me,
'cause I'm waiting too long
to set up irrigation all the time.
Rookie mistake that I really shouldn't be making.
- You guys really should go over
and check out Jacques's channel,
pressure him in the comments of his channel
to set up proper irrigation 'cause he has not done so.
- I also promised that I would do that video.
So we'll see, it's coming, it's coming.
- [Kevin] Guess what? I found our best friend.
- Oh man. - The old grubly.
- [Jacques] It's too thick.
- We will be doing a video soon, guys,
on how to deal with these,
'cause these are one of the most annoying pests,
especially in our climate, but it sounds like,
from the comments I get, in yours as well.
So I'll toss him down there for now.
- [Jacques] And then in terms
of like different planting methods,
I know there's like the Ruth Stout method,
which I believe he did last year.
- Yes. - It was quite successful,
and that's probably the easiest, right?
- Did you put one in here? - Yes, I got one there.
- So I'll put one right. - I think it's just there.
- Maybe this guy and this guy,
I got this one in here too. - Okay, perfect.
- So I'll go right here.
Yeah, so Ruth Stout,
she basically didn't even plant her potatoes.
She would drop 'em, and then she'd cover 'em up
with about a foot to 18 inches of hay,
and then sort of walk over that, smooth it out,
and then water that in every so often.
But honestly, she almost barely even watered it.
So "Ruth Stout's Easy, No-Work Garden,"
I believe, is the title of her book.
And so she used to like garden naked by the road,
and she just was a absolute character.
- OG. - Yeah, OG.
And she had some really valid techniques.
I mean, her whole point was like, why?
Why do the work?
Why do work if you don't have to do the work?
- And the beauty of that whole system is
that you don't even have to dig out your potatoes.
You just walk up, pick 'em off the ground.
- Pick up the hay, pick 'em right up.
I mean, as long as you're covering the surface
of where the potatoes are emerging from sun,
you won't get what are called green potatoes,
which is sort of them solarize,
getting too much solanine in them
and potentially becoming a little toxic to eat.
But yeah guys, I'll throw some mulch on this
after it comes up, maybe some garden straw.
But besides that, it's just water this in,
wait for it to sprout.
Check out our full potato seed-to-harvest video.
But until next time, good luck in the garden,
and keep on growing.
(relaxed music)