Potato planting from hole to row!

The potato as humble as it gets in the vegetable family but as popular and versatile as any. Consequently we are big fans of these tubers and after years of trials and experimenting with numerous varieties we finally settled on what works best for us and is delicious regardless how it is prepared.

300 pounds of seed potatoes arrived yesterday, well actually 250 pounds was delivered with an additional 50 floating around on a delivery truck. In years past the farmer picked up her handy shovel and proceeded to dig a hole every 2 feet.  Up to 500 holes! This Mother’s Day tradition was slow painful and deserving of revision for sure.

Wing plow opening up the rows

During one particularly dry spring the ground simply would not yield to the shovel and the tiller bounced more then it dug in. Scratching our heads and feeling more then a little defeated we set about to find a remedy. Not being a large enough operation to invest in the full on potato planter we needed to find some economical as well as functional solution.

The results of our determination was the purchase of a small wing blade plow that hooked on to the rear of our tiller to open up a trough that we could drop the seed potatoes in. It was a simple effective, labor saving and when timed properly an end to the Mother’s Day tradition.

Dropping seed potatoes in the rows

All 300 pounds (about 2500 holes) were planted by 2 adults in under 4 hours...the last 50 pounds were delivered right on cue as we had just finished planting the 250 pounds. When we ventured down for a cool drink of water the delivery had been made. Nine 250 foot rows of potatoes. Learning, Sowing and Growing!

The still laborious method of covering, in definite need of an overhaul