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Q5: Welcome to Amish Style Gardening. Harvesting and curing of potatoes - August 2026 Need a curing room - nearly ready to harvest spuds... My first attempt 2 grow bags yielded 15 potatoes, small chook egg size. That is 5 spuds per plant, and immature in size.
Another 3 weeks to go. Skin is firm. But size is small - more water to fill them. No water in the last 2 weeks of finishing. I harvested 12 pot bags, and yields were poor. (a) not enough decomposed rich soil (b) no water reaching bag bottom. (a) add water until it flows out of bottom (b) no extra straw - add good feed instead I am hoping the seed potates will start OK in February next year and that the new metal boxes of straw wil become rich organic matter. -----------
This curing room will hold 3000 spuds for curing to get thicker skin for storage. That assumes I can get the day temperatures down to less than 25 degrees C. Making room cool is a worry - 30 degrees in July Aug in daytime temps. Might make it 2.4 by 3.0 m instead? Also maintain temperatures at less than 25 degrees. Also maintain humidity at 80 to 90 % Plan to have a light, as room is in the dark - blankets - or light depending upon what the room function is - seedling - chitting or curing. 12Volt fans to remove humidity ans fungus as the curing air is ventilated. Need solar panels, batteries and stuff like that. The room serves three functions. Better use of the room. Shelves inside wire netting and sand bed.
The curing of the current King Edward potatoes - leave them in their bags / soil They are covered to exist at high humidity and low temperatures at night Notice the straw keeping the spuds frost free. High day temps is a worry (30 degrees) ... Maybe a better curing room might work - but this is the simplest method so far. I am trying to make the growing as simple as possible.
Other potatoes still immature and growing. Try more watering and more richer feeding.
Removed a metal box to make room for curing room / also chitting room / also seedling room. See red rectangle outline. Also new metal box coming along - number 13. (red arrow) Might have to wire netting the whole 13 boxes due to birds eating leaves etc.
A view of the new shed. (second arrow) A view of the new osarge orange tree from Canada, insecticide tree. Cut branches and cure poke in ground - repels all insects from garden. Exudes an oil chemical inside the wood for years. Be careful the old wild orange is toxic and has spikes.
A view of the shed coming along. The shed is 3.0m wide and 2.4 m deep and 2.0 m high. The metal floor makes the shed rat proof - to be covered with cement and sand. ----feed soil
Mixing flour over the metal boxes with milk powder in 4 :1 ratio Adding molasses brew in watering can. Like so
Garden hoed over the straw compost material, nice earthy smell, adding air to the material. Hard work lifting tangled straw.
Inside the new seedling shed Empty pots ready for soil mix and corn seed.
Other view of inside seedling shed Water humidifier - a towel in water
Outside of the seedling shed - with fridge door to make water tight seal Metal floor, with cement - rat proof Plastic roof with shadecloth
View of flour. milk powder in metal boxes - before molasses is added, also urea for Nitrogen
Close up of flour/milk powder/overturned straw material Feed the microbes and make the compost faster. -------harvest summary Sow spuds in Feb and HARVEST in June More richer soil - light and fluffy More watering once the stems emerge Question: How do you make compost richer? I read one video - add chicken manure? Well where do you did such material? My wheelbarrow of chook manure per six months, is poor and really rather useless. I have no car to gather huges quantities of cow manure like I used to, and in reality it did not promise much. So my question remains, how do you make rich soil? for potatoes? ----update -- still harvesting spuds
Corn beds not ready - so adding kitchen scraps , rice, flour, molasses and milk podwer. Not much life so far, found one worm in it.
View of other corn bed
Half of the grow bags harvested. Blue arrow.
Even King Edwards in metal boxes did not yield much, I suspect the soil was not properly decomposed into rich soil?
Corn seeds soaked in molases, milk powder and KNO3. Hoping they germinate and once I see a root, will plant the first 500 into pots, for rest of growing as a seedling.
View of the pots with soil, ready to receive the seeds. This way I get all 500 seedling in the same growth , same stage and the same growing. You harvest them at the same time.
Metal boxes for potatoes come Feb 2027. Dug them over still not ready - need for decomposing.
Snow peas flowering, the ones lefts after birds attack. Need to wire enclose the garden beds out here?
Removing the straw reveals spuds sit on top of soil.
Me on hands and knees removing spuds in the metal box.
A King Edward in the hand.
Such rare pictures of me.
Yield in one metal box. Better than grow bags.
Yield from 20 grow bags.
Back in seedling shed, my corn roots are 12 hours too long. As the finger shows. Radicle roots easily broken. Better if 2 mms long - NOT 10 mm long.
Another picture of the seeds with nice root development. It took only about 4 days to get the seed germinated and into their pots, roots between 2mm to 12mm in length. The end of potato growing and harvesting.
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