Hey guys, Derrick and Paula here from Back to Reality.
So last week, we showed you how we’ve been working to expand our garlic bed, but as
some of you may recall, we also decided to the same thing with our potatoes. So today we're gonna show you
how we did that and then do our final harvest
to see how it all turned out.
Now last year, we grew our first ever potato crop in one of our Ruth Stout beds, and honestly
it was incredibly rewarding, because it was super easy and resulted in a pile of food.
All we did was lay out some spoiled hay on top of the grass the previous autumn, and
then in the spring, we pulled the hay apart, tossed in the spuds, and covered them back
up until it was time to harvest.
That was it.
No digging, tilling, watering, or weeding.
We did add a bit of extra mulch on top as the plants grew to keep the sun off the tubers,
but when compared to the usual method of hilling with earth, we can confidently say that these
potatoes were no work at all.
If you haven’t seen our previous videos on this method, we highly recommend you
check those out first, so I’ve put some links to the description.
But suffice it to say, our only regret is that we didn't planted WAY more of them.
Paula and I tend eat a lot of potatoes throughout the year, so if we ever hope to become
fully food-self-sufficient, one row just isn’t going to cut it. When we first
started building our fence a few years ago, we figured 50 feet by 50 feet
would be more than enough space.
But as our crops increased, it quickly became apparent that we would eventually out-grow
our confines.
But a fence only protects against larger animals, like rabbits, raccoons, and deer, so unless
a particular veggie is part of their diet, keeping them inside the fence would be of
little benefit.
That’s why we decided to plant our garlic outside the fence, and when it was time to
expand our potato crop, it was an easy decision as well.
You see, for the most part, garlic and potatoes only suffer from small pests, like insects
and nematodes.
And while these can pose serious problem for your plants, they can also pass
through any normal fencing material anyway.
So, outside the fence makes good sense.
For the initial move, we started with a new much larger 20 foot x 40 foot Ruth Stout bed,
but we have plenty of space to expand even further into the field, if needed.
We’ve covered the Ruth Stout method pretty extensively already, so I won’t bother going
into much detail now, but essentially, we mowed the area last fall, and covered it with
a thick layer of old hay.
Then in the spring, we decided to create walking paths, by removing some of the mulch.
Our intention was to mimic the shape of a keyhole garden to a certain extent, in order
to minimize the amount of paths, while also maximizing the amount of easily accessible
growing space.
This also had the side benefit of subdividing our plot into 7 sections so that we could
easily separate the different varieties when planting.
Plus, it also gave us an early opportunity to observe the Ruth Stout method in action.
Because it had only been one winter, and yet much of the old grass had already decomposed, and
no new weeds had begun to grow.
Simply looking to the lush grasses outside the garden immediately highlights the difference
you can make with just a layer of hay.
Next came the actual planting, but once again, it was a simple matter of lifting the hay,
tossing in the spuds, and dropping the hay back down.
Our varieties included:
1 row of early season norland 3 rows of russet
a row of pontiac, another of early season warba.
And finally, in the last row, we planted a mix of leftovers that we had saved from last
years crop.
These had simply been kept in a cardboard box throughout the winter, and as you can
see, they’d grown some pretty impressive stolons. All in all,
we planted about 34 lbs of seed potatoes, and it took us less than half an hour. We even had quite a bit of
space left over, so we decided to throw in a row of onion sets,
as well.
And then as usual, all that was left was to wait.
But after several weeks, the leaves began breaking through the mulch.
Next came some flowers, and eventually by around mid summer, we began weekly, and then
almost daily meal-sized mini-harvests.
This continued until a couple weeks ago when the foliage had fully died off on our two
rows of early varieties.
So we decided to harvest them completely, and much to our delight, we gathered a combined
total of 65 lbs.
And now, it’s finally time to do our full harvest.
Just like last year, harvesting potatoes from a Ruth Stout garden is a simple matter of
pulling aside the hay to expose the tubers, and then collecting them.
No tools are required, there’s no risk of cutting or damaging the potatoes in any way,
and the soil never has to be disturbed.
But speaking of the soil, keep in mind that one year ago, this was all thick grasses,
weeds, and wildflowers.
And yet now, it’s fully exposed earth with plenty of compost material mixed in.
Plus, I know I mention this a lot, but honestly, just look at all the earthworms.
They’re everywhere.
And they’re not the only critters who seem to enjoy this natural habitat either.
For example, we came across toads, blue spotted salamanders, and even a northern red bellied
snake.
But don’t worry, this little guy is completely harmless to humans, and spends most of his
time eating grubs, slugs, and snails.
So, he’s pretty bad news for our slimy friends, but he’s also an excellent form of natural
pest control, and an important part of a healthy ecosystem.
Now, I have to say, we really enjoy the process of harvesting potatoes in this way.
It’s easy.
It’s relaxing.
And honestly it’s also a lot of fun, uncovering so much food and interacting with so much
nature.
Once everything was harvested, we collected them all and weighed them.
So now let’s look at the numbers.
As I mentioned, we initially planted approximately 34 lbs of seed potatoes, and our first harvest
of the earlier varieties yielded 65 lbs.
Then there’s our weekly and daily harvests of young potatoes throughout the growing season,
which we conservatively estimate to be around 30lbs, especially considering that would
have weighed even more if left to mature fully.
And finally, today’s harvest weighed in at a whopping 242 lbs.
Which gives us a grand total of 337.
Or about 10 times our initial input.
Now I know this may not break any records or anything, but considering how little effort
we had to put into this, I’m still pretty damn impressed.
Oh and really quickly, our onions turned out too.
If you remember our first attempt in a new Ruth Stout bed last year, most were about
golf ball size, but this year we averaged around tennis ball.
So they’re still a bit small, but I’m pretty happy with that.
However, this wouldn’t be much of a learning experience if we didn’t include a few lessons.
So let’s chat really quickly about some of the things we might do differently next year.
First of all, the paths.
In hindsight, it would have been far better to actually just leave the mulch in place
and simply not plant where we plan to walk, because after the potato plants begin to grow,
the lack of vegetation between the rows would have clearly indicated the walking paths anyway, and
unfortunately, without the mulch, the area quickly filled back in with weeds.
Also, though we had originally planned on cutting our potatoes into sections
before planting unfortunately, time constraints just simply didn’t allow it.
So, we don’t yet know which way is best, but we hope to try again next year.
Plus, as you can see, a few of the tubers ended up all knobby and deformed, and from
what I’ve read, that tends to happen as a result of inconsistent watering, which actually
makes a lot of sense, because we didn't water them ever. We simply left that up to
rainfall and the moisture retention of the mulch.
Plus, this year, we had a record-breaking drought for a couple months, followed by some
pretty intense rainstorms later in the summer.
But despite how funny they may look, this shouldn’t affect their flavour or nutrition,
so we’re not that concerned about it.
However, we may consider some form of irrigation in the future, just as a backup plan.
And finally, though 337 lbs is a pretty incredible harvest, it’s still likely not enough to
keep us fed all winter while also leaving enough for replanting in the spring.
So, I think we’ll probably consider expanding our growing area even more than we did this
time around.
But for now, we gonna have to figure out how the heck to store all of these.
See you guys soon!