Higgs Boson wrote:
On Nov 27, 8:09 pm, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote:
On Nov 27, 2:53 pm, "David Hare-Scott" wrote:
Higgs Boson wrote:
Have cut up some red potato eyes to plant. Looked it up on-line.
They say to mound up +- 6" of mulch after burying the eyes. I
never understood why one has to do this, rather than just let the
new potatoes grow underground.

You can plant below the surface and mound as the shoots grow or
plant them in a hole (or trench) and fill the hole as the shoots
grow. The purpose is to get the 'seed' tuber down deeper. The
reason to get it deeper is that the new tubers will grow at the
level of the old one so if you leave it too shallow the tubers may
come to the surface or the plants will fall over. But if you just
plant very deep the shoot may not make it to the surface
(especially if you reduce the food that it has by not planting
whole tubers).

***Interesting. The Web site I consulted:

http://www.gardengatemagazine.com/ex...toplanting.php

suggested NOT giving the "eye" too much food, so it won't be lazy
about growing, having plenty of goodies available underground.
I left some potato, but not a whole tuber.

That makes no sense to me. The taters are cut up so that if you have
large tubers you can get more than one plant out of each. If they
are small you don't bother.

***But how can you get more than one plant out of each eye? Now I am
confused.

More than one plant per tuber just one per eye.

D