Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteers of Buncombe County

container gardening

Vegetable Gardening: Time to Plant Potatoes?

St. Patrick’s Day is traditionally a reminder that it is time to plant potatoes (although anytime between March 15th and April 15th is fine in Western North Carolina). Another link between potatoes and the Irish, however, is the Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s—the late blight that caused that catastrophe is an important reason to think carefully about potato plantings. What are the pros and cons of growing your own?

Potato eyes

What potatoes want
Potatoes will grow well in the ground—and even in containers—in WNC if you give them:
• Fast-draining soil
• Full sun
• Slightly acid conditions (pH from 5.5 to 6.5)
• Keep them well-fertilized—don’t overdo nitrogen fertilizers or you’ll get more green foliage than tubers—10-10-10 or 10-20-20 are usually fine!
• Weed regularly.

Choosing varieties
Potatoes have a relatively long growing season—at least 70 days, and as long as 150 days from planting—and plants likely potential yield can be as low as less than one pound per plant! Even high yielding varieties produce only 3 to 4 pounds per plant, so consider how much time and space you are willing to devote to a crop that is readily available at local markets.

In NC, varieties recommended for home gardens include ‘Kennebec’ (high yield, main season), ‘Red Pontiac’ (high yield, late season), and ‘Yukon Gold’ (medium yield, early main season)—all of which store well.

Container planting

How to plant
Purchase seed potatoes, rather than potato seed—which will take much longer to produce potato tubers. Only certified seed potatoes are guaranteed to be free of disease, so do not risk introducing disease into your garden by using potatoes you purchase for eating! Seed potatoes may be whole potatoes or potato pieces that have “eyes”—indentations from which the plant foliage will grow. Your seed potatoes should NOT be shriveled or have sprouts before planting.

• Cut seed potatoes into pieces that weigh about 2 ounces—ideally with two or more eyes.
• Plant these pieces about 3 to 4 inches deep and about 12 inches apart.
• If you choose container planting:
o Use at least a five-gallon container with drainage holes.
o Plant 3 to 4 inches deep, but start with soil only 8 inches deep
o For larger, wider containers—such as bushel baskets—plant more than one piece about 8 inches apart from each other.
• Hill up earth around garden plants and add soil depth to container plantings once the stems grow 4 to 6 inches tall. Continue to hill up/add depth as the plants grow.

Colorado Potato Beetle Egg Mass
Colorado Potato Beetle Larvae

Concerns
Insect pests—aphids, Colorado potato beetles, and flea beetles—may damage your plants’ foliage and affect your harvest. Seek out and destroy Colorado potato beetle eggs and larvae to avoid total defoliation!

Diseases are a much greater risk for your crop—and the long-term health of your garden. Potatoes may suffer from fungal, bacterial, viral, and nematode-introduced diseases. Although planting certified seed potatoes and rotating the place you plant potatoes each year may help avoid most diseases, late blight (Phytophthora infestans) is a disease that is devastating to potatoes, and may impact tomatoes, too!

Late Blight on Potato

Potatoes late blight lifecycle
Late blight can survive year-round only on plant material, so late blight typically only begins affecting plants in our area once it moves north from frost-free areas in the south. Unfortunately, if you leave infected potato tubers in the ground, late blight may overwinter here and then infect your tomatoes earlier in their growing season. Although it may seem easy to remove all tubers from the ground, anyone who has grown potatoes will know that it is very easy to miss tiny tubers that will sprout again the next spring.

Bottom line: to avoid the risk of introducing late blight into your garden, think carefully about planting potatoes!

Article by Debbie Green, Buncombe County Extension Master Gardener Volunteer

For more information:

De Jong, H., J.B. Sieczka, and W. De Jong (2011). The Complete Book of Potatoes: What Every Grower and Gardener Needs to Know. Portland, OR: Timber Press.

Potato varieties grown in NC:https://ncpotatoes.org/varieties/

Potato late blight: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/potato-late-blight

General advice about vegetable gardening: https://content.ces.ncsu.edu/extension-gardener-handbook/16-vegetable-gardening

 

Vegetable Gardening: EarthBoxes®

Craving homegrown veggies, but not much space, poor growing conditions, contaminated soils, or past failures with container gardening? Consider EarthBoxes®, a growing method developed by Florida farmer Blake Whisenant, working with university researchers and Cooperative Extension. Whisenant, using C. M. Geraldson’s gradient-oriented nutritional paradigm, created EarthBox® as a self-contained system with growing medium, fertilizer, lime, a water reservoir, and plastic mulch cover.

Why EarthBoxes®?

Although Extension Master Gardeners don’t endorse commercial products, EarthBoxes® resulted from research to develop a growing system that manages water and nutrients for optimal plant growth. Having grown vegetables at homes in different states, as well as a local community garden, I know that EarthBoxes® produce better yields in less space than conventional in-ground planting—with minimal maintenance!

Earthbox-Deb-Nystrom-2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)
EarthBox with Cover

How to use EarthBoxes®.

Each box is 29 inches long, 13 ½ inches deep, 11 inches tall, holds 3 gallons of water, and 2 cubic feet of growing medium. Tuck a single EarthBox® onto your deck or create an EarthBox® farming operation! For success, set up your EarthBoxes® with:

  • An appropriate growing medium,
  • Mixed with the recommended amount of dolomitic lime.
  • The recommended type and amount of fertilizer placed in a strip topped with more growing medium,
  • Covered with a plastic mulch “cap” that is either black, white, or red.

You need not buy soil mixes, fertilizers, and lime sold with EarthBoxes®—it is often cheaper to purchase these in bulk. Choose either conventional or organic products—just do NOT use garden soil and DO use dolomitic lime rather than other lime formulations. Carefully follow your EarthBox® instructions for the amount and placement of these ingredients—you should NOT add any more fertilizer during the growing season!

For gardening in future years:

  • The boxes will last indefinitely—I have one that is almost 20 years old and left outside most of that time!
  • The growing medium can be reused for many years—with just some topping up when you replant your boxes the next growing season.
  • Replenish fertilizer, lime, and mulch covers every year.

Customize your boxes by:

  • Making them mobile on casters to follow the sun;
  • Raise them up to waist height;
  • Add trellises for vining crops and support for your tomatoes;
  • Include frost covers to extend the growing season.

Watering is key!

You must keep the EarthBox® water reservoir partially full, so your plants’ dense root systems are evenly moist. This enclosed system means you cannot rely on rainwater, so boxes without an automatic watering system might require water twice a day by midsummer! The upside is that during wet seasons your boxes will not become waterlogged and/or leach nutrients—one reason Whisenant designed EarthBoxes® was crop loss from flooding in Florida tomato fields!

Adding an automatic watering system makes your boxes almost maintenance-free. The system sold to accompany EarthBoxes® can be a bit difficult to set up (their instructional video provides pointers) and may be vulnerable to coming apart and leaking. To minimize the toll of accidental leaks, I use a timer to limit how long water flows to the boxes; 15 to 20 minutes every 6 hours keeps the reservoirs filled on my eight-box system.

  • Use a “Y” connector when you hook up your automatic watering system to allow using your hose bib for other watering chores.
  • Make sure you keep any hose bib shut-off valve to the EarthBoxes® open at all times!
  • Turn on the faucet far enough to create sufficient water pressure to keep your boxes watered.

What can you grow in your EarthBoxes®?

Just about any vegetable—and many fruits and herbs—grown in our area will grow in an EarthBox®. I do not grow perennials (asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries, and many herbs) in EarthBoxes® because you must disconnect the watering system before frost!

A single box will hold 2 full-size tomato plants, OR 2 eggplants, OR 4 cucumber vines, OR 6 pepper plants, OR 8 lettuces, OR 16 bean plants. This may not seem like much, but I harvested 119 full-sized fruits from the two ‘Better Boy’ tomato plants I grew in my first EarthBox®!

EarthBox-Debbie-Green
Vegetable Gardening with EarthBoxes

Although EarthBox® provides planting placement instructions for many other crops, I have found it difficult to start seeds in the boxes—use your own or purchased transplants—so I do not grow beets, corn, or radishes in these systems. Trying new crops is part of the gardening adventure, though—experiment to find the best choices for your EarthBox® space!

Not every crop will do well every year but pay attention to timely harvesting and any disease or insect problems and you’ll typically see greater yields than from the same plants grown in the ground—and in a smaller space!

Should you try it?

The downside is the initial investment, so starting with a single EarthBox® or two with a watering system is a cautious approach. There are also many “do-it-yourself” versions of the boxes, and variants on irrigation methods, but I can’t vouch that you’ll get the same results with these substitutes.

If you do try EarthBoxes®, remember that you can consult with those of us who have used them before. Our Extension Master Gardner helpline opens again in March, along with info tables at many gardening events in our area!

Article by Debbie Green, Buncombe County Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer.

 Read more:

About Blake Whisenant:
http://floridaaghalloffame.org/2014/10/robert-blake-whisenant/

What/how to plant:
https://earthbox.com/media/wysiwyg/PDFs/OriginalPlantingChart.pdf

Instructional videos:
https://earthbox.com/videos

 

Kids Post: Mini-Gardens for Little Kids

While in hand-to-hand combat with the weeds in my asparagus bed, my young neighbor with her active, inquisitive 3-year-old son and 18-month-old daughter stopped to watch me work. The weary mom sighed, lamenting that she wanted her children to enjoy gardening . . . someday . . . but that would have to wait until they were older. Little kids, in the garden? I knew where she was coming from. Her comment triggered the memory of my 2-year-old grandson “helping” me pick tomatoes—proudly presenting his tomato—still attached to the tomato plant—roots and all!

Child's sand bucket garden
Child’s sand bucket garden

Today, there are wonderfully illustrated, age-appropriate children’s books on gardening practices and the science of plants. Books make a nice introduction to both plants and gardening and provide good talking points about how things are done and why. (A book list of children’s gardening books—beginning with board books—is included at the end of this blog.)

For toddlers, mimicking gardening acts—planting, watering, weeding, checking for bugs, picking flowers or vegetables—is a main source of enjoyment. Because toddlers delight in repeated play activities, a sand garden—a sand-filled container complete with an array of plastic flowers and garden tools—can provide hours of gardening fun.

By the time a child is 3 or 4, a large pot can become a container garden, putting the garden literally at a child’s-eye level. A single plant is a good beginning, but try pairing a vegetable plant with a pollinator plant in a pot clearly marked with the child’s name. This gives the child a specific place to practice the planting, watering, weeding, bug-checking, and harvesting with adult guidance. Taking pictures of the garden as it develops and making a simple My Garden Book helps the child develop a sense of accomplishment.

Child's saucer garden
Child’s saucer garden

Saucer gardens are another way of incorporating child’s play into gardening activities. The gardens can be as elaborate as moss gardens for a fairy village, or special terrains for woodland creatures incorporating sticks, rocks, red clay, small plants, or trees. Add plastic dinosaurs, animals, or superheroes to provide the action. Saucer gardens can be as simple as lettuce gardens to provide salad greens.

By the time a child is 4 or 5, a designated spot in the family garden, or a place in the yard, can be turned into a kid’s raised bed garden.

  • Keep the space small—4- by 4-feet maximum.
  • Have it in a safe place within parental view.
  • Establish a routine for maintenance.
Child's found space garden
Child’s found space garden

Provide a laminated card with a simple pictorial checklist to help the child focus on what needs to be done each day. An inexpensive magnifying glass is a great help in identifying bugs, worms, and changes in the plants. And, don’t overlook children’s ability to locate a found garden spot themselves, like these unused concrete steps turned into a moss garden.

Article written by Mary Hugenschmidt, Extension Master GardenerSM Volunteer. 

Click here to download a list of gardening books for children 5 and under (PDF format).
Gardening Books for Children Five and Under

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Buncombe County Extension Office
49 Mount Carmel Road
Asheville, NC 28806
Helpline 828-255-5522

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