Easier Potatoes: How and Why we Hill with Mulch Instead of Soil
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- Опубликовано: 3 авг 2023
- As you guys know, we’ve been growing potatoes exclusively under mulch for about 5 or 6 years at this point. But today, I’d like to focus on one specific part of the potato growing process: how and why we hill our potatoes using mulch instead of soil.
Playlist - Growing potatoes under mulch:
• Easier Potatoes: How a...
In 1988, I rented a home in central Nebraska that came with a fully planted and growing garden. The garden was huge. It had two rows of potatoes that were growing in hay mulch. I ate potatoes for months. Not only were they easy to harvest, they were completely clean, too! I was fresh out of dental school. A city boy living in a tiny rural town. I had never had a garden. It was an amazing time and an amazing place to live.
I hope you continued gardening😊
Sounds like the perfect life, to me!!
@@Tinyteacher1111 it was...
Wow
I've found a hybrid approach works best in my area. Instead of rows, we grow in hills or mounds. Herrick Kimball has an excellent video series about Primitive Mound Culture potatoes, and it has really worked for us. Instead of planting on top of the soil, we plant extremely shallowly. Five potatoes per mound, 4 feet between mounds. As soon as the potatoes come up, we rake or hoe soil from the area between the mounds to kill the persistent weeds we have and cover all but the growing tips. A couple weeks later, when the potatoes are 8-10 inches tall, we do it again. At this time, the potato bed looks a bit like a WW1 battlefield with craters everywhere between the mounds. At this time, we mulch the mounds with whatever is on hand, and as time and materials permit, mulch the walkways between mounds too. We still get massive weed pressure, but it doesn't impact yields. The mounds combined with deep mulch mean that supplemental watering is eliminated in all but the driest years. Plant once, water once, weed once, mulch once. Done. I've already harvested a few Red Viking taters that were the size of softballs this year.
Wow! I wish I knew how to do that, and had the strength to dig up beds. I have a broken arm and I’m only 4’ 9”, and alone. I have a 4’ wide slope that slopes away from a path toward a back fence. My little dig can sure get through the fence I put there, and I have to get him out, but it’s all oregano, onions, and ground cover. I’m planting raspberries, because I have some, but the fact that it slopes away from me, and I’ve fallen stepping there, scares me. I wish I could put it to better use, and that there weren’t two huge digs my dog loves to bark at and get filthy, so I have to carry him out and give him a bath! Ugh!
Last summer, I created three tiered beds on a hillside that was just too steep to safely mow. Because the soil was essentially just clay mixed with rocks, I had to dig it all up, and it took so much time that I did not have time to sift the rocks or loosen the soil from the very last tier before the end of Fall. So following your lead, this Spring I just dug up that bed, spread compost, layed some seed potatoes and topped with four inches of dead leaves. The potatoes grew very nicely and I am looking forward to harvesting delicious potatoes from that bed.
I also have another potato bed, from which I've already started harvesting potatoes. I did have sign of rodents eating up a couple of my potatoes, but aside from that, they looked pretty good. Those were grown in a more established bed, which I mulched with plenty of dried leaves. I do have some onions on the next row, but I am now thinking I might grow the onions and potatoes in the same bed as a deterrent.
Thanks for inspiring me with some cool ideas. Your videos are very clear, detailed and helpful!
Your hillside sounds like it is very similar to where potatoes evolved along the west slope of the Andes in South America. They are right at home on your hillside.
Been a while since I've watched your videos. But I love. Just love your production style. No b.s filler just concise straightforward. Keep up the good work.
I love your animations! Really helps to visualize things and sets you apart from other creators.
I have a huge potato patch, for market gardening 50x50ft size, in clay soil, grow zone 6a. Hilling is also useful for frost protection if your plants are up. Completely cover them, they will grow right on through the soil after the cold passes. Do not let them get frosted! If you have heavy clay soil, you can, and I did, amend with "fill sand." For a 50x50 patch, a 12 Ton dump truck seems about right, and you will have a fantastic potato or onion planting bed. 3rd note, is once your potatoes bloom, stop weeding! Let the weeds shade your potato patch if you want to have potatoes all year like I have. The weeds offer sun protection and cool soil temperature. In my patch I mow off or machete off about 10ft and dig firm, beautiful potatoes all summer as needed. Then before ground freeze I dig 5, 5 gallon buckets of potatoes for next years seed potatoes. I haven't bought seed potatoes for over 10 years using this method, and we have fresh potatoes almost all year this way. Just remember, unless you have a root cellar, once you dig a potato, it begins rapid deterioration/softening.
We have used this method (which I learned about from you) for two seasons now. We just flipped the turf, set the seed potatoes on top covered with dry grass clippings and watered it a couple of times a week if it was particularly hot and dry. I added a bit more grass throughout the season. For the amount of effort, I think I got a really good yield. I plan to grow walking onions around my potato patch in the future to keep voles out, but luckily have yet to have any issues.
I did that this year...a mix of walking onions and onion plants. The walking onions did so much better. I left them because the mother just didn't make enough bulbets, and I want to tighten up the gaps and harvest some for eating. My walking onions seem hardy enough to overwinter and are up bright and early in the late winter about the time my dead nettle starts to wake up and grow. The mother plant has made it through getting tilled accidently, and 3 harsh Kansas winters so I am excited about my vole protection plans. Last year I was quite frustrated with them, even though the kitties were helping out...voles had multiplied faster than the few walking onions....lol I ought to have enough this year... if not, I have enough garlic to close the gaps...but it gets harvested too soon , I guess I can leave it and flag where it is so I don't forget to pull them end of August or mid Sept.
@@marthasundquist5761 Thank you for sharing this! I'm glad someone else has given this a try, and I really hope it helps with your vole problem next season :)
I just bought 100 Desiree seed potatoes (I'm in Australia, so we're ramping up for Spring) and I was wondering about which method to use when growing them. It's been a busy Winter, so the idea of planting on bare ground and then mulching sounds easy and appealing and a good use of time. Also, the forecast for here is for a hot, dry Summer, so being under all that mulch should help control moisture loss as well. I'm lazy, so mulching the spuds could be a win/win. We don't have voles, but we do have bush rats, so predation might still be an issue. Thanks for the video.
Cheers from me in Pimpama, Qld - make sure nothing was commercial, like hay as commercial hay or manures from animals fed commercial hay has persistent herbicide in it: totally wrecked my garden & it didnt twig at first so i got more 'free' manure. Destroyed my garden... months of work. But at least i finally found out. All the best getting organic stuff 🎉😊
@@7hilladelphiaDaaamn that sucks! Ran into that issue myself a couple times. Organic all the way now, no shortcuts or "good deals", just not worth it.
Compliment to your art of presenting while using verbal and verbal cool graphics in combination. This makes all themes easy to absorb and digest the essence of each concept ! Greeting from Germany
I agree with the mulch not soil. I planted two different patches of potatoes this year and the hay mulch potatoes did so much better, larger easier to harvest and way more tubers per plant.
We don't have voles where I'm at but alot of gophers.i had a row of 20 or s0red onions,almost softb as ll size,and in one morning they pulled the onions down,ate them from underneath and left the tops in a crater of a whole..x20.lolgood luck with the voles
I know of another woman who puts a hardwire fencing on her ground, covers it with soil and then plants her potatoes. That helps keep the creatures from feasting on her crop. I grow my potatoes in grow bags. That's how I keep nature from helping itself to my hard work. As usual, you guys have THE BEST garden videos ever!! Thank you-a fan from Minnesota!
Thanks for the updates. It is good to know you're still working on it.
TTFN
Respect from Africa 🇿🇦
Thanks! :)
Respect from Canada! 🇨🇦
This is the first video of yours that I've come across. Excellent job. I look forward to seeing your other videos.
I like your style of presenting information.
Nice to see I'm not the only gardener whose whisker's are getting that grey/ white Santa look!😊
Excellent video as usual.
Just a word. Potatoes that are a bit green are harmless. Just peel away anything that's green and it's safe to eat. Even eating a small amount of green potato is harmless.
Very timely video. Early in the season I was looking for spoiled hay but couldn't find any, so I used donated bags of leaves to "hill" around the stalks. I eventually found someone selling last year's hay and started adding that around the stalks. I'm still adding hay as they grow. Last year we had a lot of sun damage. I'm guessing the wind blows the stalks around and pushes the hay away from the base of the plants. Hopefully the thicker leaves keep the sun out this year. It looks like the hay you are working with is much easier to fill in around the plants than what I have, as it looks "short". The hay I am using from large rolled bales is long and hard to fit around the stalks.
Awesome update ! Thank you.
Very informative.
Great info. Thank you from South Africa! 🙂
Awesome work
great video! you guys have help me so much over the years! thanks!
Amazing....... never thought of growing spuds like that!! This will definitely be tried next year!! Thank u!
Very helpful vid, and extremely well done. Thank you!
Amazing video...we are going to try this at our cabin in the woods and also at our homestead. Thank you so much!
It's often said, that the hilling is for increasing the harvest by stimulating the plant to build new tubers around the now burried part of the stem as it does in a potato-tower where one plant produces tubers from the bottom to the top of the soil.
Great Videos. Thanks🙏
Thanks for sharing, I like it! Play through.
love your channel! so clearly explained in lighthearted way.. Im.in Ireland where we have lots of slugs but still got some good potatoes from hay mulch
thanks foryour videos ...love them! .
Thanks for reminding me I need to go rustle bags of leaves from my neighbors' curbs this weekend.
This has inspired me to grow potatoes ....so simple, wow!
I've gotten over 100lbs in - i.e. on - heavy clay soil under just three or so inches of grass clippings and barn waste. I'm about to plant the fall crop. Can't wait to see what happens in the coming years as I add more mulch to the beds.
I currently use digestate from biogas fermentation to mulch and hill potatoes. It's a fine material, very high in carbon... excludes light and is perfect while searching for hidden potatoes with bare hands. And it is delivered free of charge in bulk!
great idea.. i have a few bales of straw this year, i think i'm going to try your mulch hilling method.
Love your stuff kick on love it
Great video! Thanks for making it
You're welcome, and thanks for watching! :)
Love this video:)
great video.
Thank you from South Africa.
Great video thanks
Great video as always! Your method of growing potatoes might be the best, if you have a good supply of mulch :) I am looking forward to the next update!
I have enough compost, but sadly not much mulch. So I bury them deep in compost and add mulch once. I might not be able to hill afterwards, but there are extremly few potatoes exposed to sunlight (
I plan to use homemade compost for the initial covering and then layers of grass clippings next year. This year i bulb planted the potatoes and then grass but i had to dig them out as my soil is still too crappy. 🤠👍
We've not tried mulching with completed compost yet, but hope to eventually. We always seem to have an abundance of compostABLE material, but never never enough compostED material. So composting in place is about as close as we get. lol
Been doing this for the last few years. Will never change this. I have had the opposite to you. My first few years I had lots of voles. This year I have not seen 1. 😁
Lovely video!
Just today I noticed 2 or 3 potatoes in our patch were visible to the sun and had turned slightly green. I covered them, but it might be too late. I had covered the area earlier in the season with dried cut grass in places when the plants were so big that they were falling on their sides revealing some of the potatoes. I love this method, it's so much better than digging to get them out. My favourite is seeing Paul Gautschi harvesting his from under the apple trees in his orchard. In time, hopefully, the soil in our garden will be similar. Take care, and thank you for sharing! I look forward to seeing more of your videos. Have you planted more/any fruit trees? 🤗💛🤗
Thanks some very insightful information, I have been growing potatoes on my old horse manure bed, and at the end of each season just putting a fresh layer of hay, and when harvesting the potatoes I leave a few behind and next year they regrow so to date I haven't even bothered to put in new seed potatoes, I also grow pumpkins around them and both do really well, the bed is along way from my water supplier so never even water them, but I will try the onion method as have a few problems with rabbits
we need more content like this
Really enjoyed the video me and the wife grow quite a bit of potatoes we normally Mound the dirt about a foot tall and once the plants get about 8 inches tall and we start to cover around the Mounds and plants with straw we do a another way when the plants flower we cut all the flowers off.thanks
I love videos like this.
Thanks! I'm really glad you liked it!!
As always brother thank you for all the great info
God bless
Just saying 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻🇨🇦😁
Great video. I really like the phrase "feeding two birds with one scone." I have used the standard old phrase many times and often thought, "Why am I throwing stones at birds, even metaphorically?"
Not that I feed birds either. I just plant a lot of native plants. The birds and the bugs do the rest.
i have been doing exactly like you for 2 years with my potatoes and got great results last year … potatoes are looking great this year but still growing at this point. I will do a barrier of garlic and oignons next year to make sure I don’t get mice there!
This has me excited to try the Ruth Stout method....but in a raised bed with a bottom to keep vermin out - now...how to find straw or hay that is not sprayed with chemicals....! :) Thanks for posting!
This year we grew our first potatoes in two methods:
1) in soil with mulch on top (6.5kg)
2) in wood-mulch with a bit of compost around the potatoe (200g)
I think we used to view mulch to cover the potatoes.
I was a happy Ruth Stout devotee but gave it up after we moved. In our new location, we spread two 900 lb round hay bales over a 4400 sq ft garden, and we had every weed and invasive plant known to man (maybe some not yet identified) come up through the thick mulch. The garden was an absolute mess. The next year we covered the entire thing with landscape fabric and planted through perforations in order to save our second season. Now we use a combination of fabric on certain crops, living mulches (such as broad leaf squash) and old fashioned weeding elsewhere. For some reason our earlier location gave us access to superior hay for gardening. Not here.
Ha, as usual, a highlight when there is a video of yours. I was waiting for you to address the critter issue as I have that, and don't really know what to do about it.
Sorry to hear that. :( It's really unfortunate that they seem to thrive in this method (unfortunate for us, at least. lol). Nothing is perfect, unfortunately.
So far, we've had good success with our onion barrier, but a several others have commented that mice LOVE their onions. So it's clearly not a one-size-fits-all solution. We'll keep experimenting though, and share whatever other ideas we have that show some promise.
Would love to see an experiment done with hilling via woodchips mulch. That resource is easiest for me to get.
That worked well for me based on a small-scale test.
Thank you
i do a mix of Ruth Stout/Deep Mulch/Back to Eden. I rarely hill and if I do, i use wood chips or grass clippings and it works great. I routinly plant about 5#'s and this year I harvested around 80#'s. i LOVE LOVE LOVE using this method. My soil is hard clay and after years of amending and sitting in the field one day, literally crying due to the work/weeds...I made a solom vow (ok I cursed and yelled) Is There A Better WAY???? so I found mulch. All my neighbors told me how it wouldn't work. around 7 years later i have gorgeous decomp matter (is it really soil?) soft and silky like flour...I have the best garden around and those same neighbors?? asking if they can have some tomatoes.. :) ha!
All the best.
Thanks Raj, same to you!
Makes me think that it would be good for growing them this way in raised beds. I'm raising all my beds to near waist height. Last year I grew some really nice spuds in a bed made from coconut coir and potting mix. I threw a few in and forgot about them. They never got hilled or touched or specifically watered. Once the plants were dying down I dug around a bit and was surprised by several really nice tubers. Then a couple weeks later I was messing with the soil to plant something and found a couple more. I only threw in about 4 sprouted tubers and got 10 big spuds I think so I was happy.
So this year I will try a fairly similar thing. I don't eat many spuds nowadays due to doing keto. But one now and then is ok for added energy. They are cooked, cooled and reheated the next day. And yes if you are wondering why I seem to be gardening at the wrong end of the year, I am in Australia!
I’ve never grown potatoes and tried to grow sweet potatoes, with them just poking through the organic soil, but they just rotted. Maybe it was because the sprinklers watered them every other day.
Now I have Lyme and a broken arm, am 68, and want to try again next year. This looks easy enough for me!! Thanks!!
Not sure if you mean you grew just sweet potatoes or sweet potatoes with regular potatoes. It's not a good idea to grow potatoes and sweet potatoes together - they're not related to each other even though they are both called "potatoes". Sweet potatoes are related to morning glories and potatoes are related to tomatoes. Sweet potatoes require a lot more water and warmth than potatoes and remember that sweet potatoes need to be grown from slips, not tubers. Hope you get better soon and good luck next season.
@@crankybanshee3809 I want to grow both, but I just tried sweet potatoes because I had some organic ones and read about an easy way to do it. I guess I goofed!
Thank you. Will this method work in a bag?
Voles got a large part of my beet crop one year. That fall and winter, we had a family of skunks decide "home" was under my tool shed. Surprisingly, that ended the vole issues. Coincidence? IDK, but they're gone.
I've watched quite a few potato sowing videos and this was the first one to mention why hilling was important, besides 'you'll get bigger crops'. As I have to garden in containers, would you recommend laying a bed of compost in the container to put the potatoes on, or just a potting mix? TIA, subscribed.
I commented on your quack grass video with a No-Till growers video about comfrey keeping out quackgrass. Maybe another usefull plant or comfrey would deter voles? It has really strong root system
Oh awesome, thanks! I missed that comment, but I'll go look for it and check out their video!
@@BackToReality I watched your quackgrass video long ago but was so excited when the long time no till farmers said they use comfrey border to keep out quack grass
Sweet potatoes aren't much different, i anticipated rodent issues so i have them in 55gal drums cut in half. I didnt realise i messed up on the soil consistency until about a month in, but by that time it was too late to restart them so im stuck with whatever i get. This fall im going mulch leaves and yard clippings and use peat to keep it low density, while making sure it has plenty of earthworms colonising it. I should bw abke to reuse it for about three years before having to refresh it much.
I may try this next year and use my perrenial walking onions for border control. This year I am trying potatoes in large pots( blue barrels cut in 1/3's, top n bottom pots and middle becomes raised bed) but they seem to need a fair bit of water. voles are a constant issue in my area.
25 seconds in and your accent gave away the fact that you are Canadian hahaha
The scones play on words was clever c:
I use Black Plastic with slits cut for each potato. I mulch the bed with well rotted compost then the Black Plastic on top and a potato in each slit just under the compost. I reuse the Black Plastic each year. Works well for me. Very little weeding to do or watering. No hilling up no green Potatoes. Its so easy.
Happy to see this video! We have had issues with this method... We got a low yield (3-4 potatoes per plant inatead of 8+) Also the plants died early and at harvest i discovered that the soil was completely dry even though the layers of straw were wet. I wonder if the rotted hay you use is better than straw? Is the straw too absorbent?
The soil must be wet, before you cover it with hay/straw/mulch. If there is little rain and the layer is too thick, the soil may not get wet.
Very good information, very easy to do except for the old leaves. When you live in a evergreen forest bushels and bushels of old leaves are hard to find. More hay it is.
Onions keeps voles, moles, gophers and field-mice away really nicely, sadly turkeys love eating onion-greens. Mum used to joke that our turkeys were pre-seasoned so we din't need to add onions, when in fact we simply had none, since the gobbling birdies ate them all, and then the gophers ate our carrots and spuds. Sigh. Fried turkey did taste great with boiled rice and a curry-sauce though!
Do you rotate your potato plot? Would crop rotation help with moles and vols?
My question to your method is if you have observe mold or other microorganisms to grow under the wed mulching of hey.. which micro organism could podentially affect our plants negatively. ??
Hi.
What kind of animation softver do you use in your videos?
Thanks!
What zone are you located, just found your channel and subscribed
Cheri
7:08 feed tubers with one scallion yes yes.
You should have watered before you put the hay down (4:39) (to keep it dry, seeds moist).
Cool. Thanks. I'm using straw but I'm worried about the herbicide spray on the straw :/ no stores around here sell organic straw. I wonder if soaking the straw in hot water would be good then rinsing, or if that's just going to create diseases on the potatoes and in the soil later. I might have to dry it out first
Ugh.
Ya I don’t add during the season I add a foot of leaves first time and leave it. No work after planting.
Hi there
Yes, I had the same problem with "critters" last year. I lost about 65% of my potatoes. This year I planted onions in between the rows and until now I have not lost a single potato to the healthy appetite of the voles. So, it worked for us. What about your potatoes?
Going to try with pine needles
I've actually left my potatoes exposed to the sun to maximize solanine before replanting them for next season. I'm working on the assumption that the extra toxicity will work to keep the voles and such out of them over the winter. 🤞
Milkweed is an edible perennial keystone species, you might consider letting the ones that sprout grow as their own crop! Especially if they are ones native to your area
Hows the weather been where you are? Its been raining here way more than any previous year; my plants love the water, but miss the sun.
Our weather has been all over the place this year. We started out with a really long dry spell - lots of heat and humidity, but no rain whatsoever. Then for the past week it's been really cool with short sporadic thunderstorms. The forecast calls for rain almost every day, but it's usually wrong. We've even had tornado warnings several times already this year (a VERY rare concern here). But all in all, our potatoes have been doing just fine under their mulch ;)
How much rainfall do you get through the summer?
I don't have hay. but end up with a lot of saw dust and wood chips. DO you know of the success rates with other mulches??
I'm sorry. You made this wonderful video.
"But":
"The shorter varieties are known as “Determinate”, while the taller varieties are known as “Indeterminate”. Potatoes, which are closely related to tomatoes (Solanum family), also fall into 2 similar categories. With potatoes however, the terms most often refer to the plant's growth habit below ground."
"Both produce potatoes the same, though indeterminate can have a slightly larger yield due to their ability to produce multiple layers of tubers, while determinate potatoes typically produce tubers in a single layer."
You didn't mention that there are two kinds of potatoes. And that your method is specifically tailored to the type you chose (determinate).
This could lead to frustration by some people.
Thank you for the video.
PS:
So the reason for the hill up is because the indeterminate potatoes can have multiple layers up the stem.
No hill up -> no more layers -> smaller harvest.
This is a really good point that I failed to mention. Unfortunately, due to our short growing season here in Canada, we tend to focus on early or mid-season varieties, which are usually determinate. However, you're absolutely right. As far as I know, the Ruth Stout Method will still work fine for indeterminate potatoes, but I can't confirm this from our own experience.
Can this be only hay mulch or also cut grass?
I've been using maple leaves as a mulch for the last 4 years. I have had tons of trouble this year with all the rain in the north east even mowing and getting out to my patch. Even my stockpile of maple leaves that I use for mulching and later hilling has been completely taken over by my field. I "hilled" once. Then I just gave up basically. I got a decent haul today but I did notice many of my potatoes (reds especially) were really chewed into. Idk I thought slugs but now you have me thinking voles, which I know are aplenty in my field. Goddam cat has refocused his life around songbirds and chipmunks lately. He even is refusing the pate cat food lately I hate this cat sometimes he used to kill everything now he's demanding friskey shreds only. I've only tried Ruth's process so far with potatoes and using leaves and first year I also added grass clippings. I've Never added water at anytime to this process in the few years I've been doing it. This crazy wet year has me thinking that perhaps I should lay out a bed of a few layers of cardboard and place my stash of leaves upon it for use next year. Maybe even set out rows with cardboard that I can add my seed to in the spring, seems like potato plants will grow through anything. Idk maybe I'll lay out rows off quickcrete and drop the seed on top and see how it goes. I'm just rambling here about what I've experienced lately. Love your channel and I thank you for taking the time out to show everybody your learned experiences.
Are you growing determinate or indeterminate varieties?
Do you not have an issue with slugs with the hay?
I made a little potato patch but instead of hay i used grass clippings from my yard. Tractor supply wanted $35 for a single bale of hay, I can get enough grass clippings from one mowing to make a bale for free. BUT my dog decide to tear up half my patch a few weeks after everything spouted, and now a few months later a single horn moth caterpillar decimated the remaining half. this years garden has been absolute crap, and not just tatos
I use my lawn clippings, dandelions weeds and all it works like a charm. At first I thought it would cause dandelions and weeds to grow but oddly it never did. I dunno, it works
Those look like Kennebec potatoes, they make great lefse!
I have been growing potatoes this way for almost 20 years. I called it the no dig method.
Have you tried to use leaves for the whole entire
I use lawn clippings around my spuds.