Gimmi some more baked potatoes!!!
Comments
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Great video @silvertipgrizz! I read Ruth Stout's books years ago but forgot about her methods of gardening. Going to give this a try this fall for potatoes. But also maybe put down some hay this spring to get ready for planting fall garlic. Sure looks a lot easier on old bones than digging! Not to mention no cut up or speared spuds.
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@torey Imagine the difference in today and yesteryear...I am dumbfounded ever time I think about the knowledge even one generation back..my parents taught me what they knew, but my ancestors before them....aunts uncles grandparents just let me help in their gardens. Some of them grew the best veggie gardens I have ever seen...and yet, it was not curriculum....I just don't understand why parents and grandparents don't do all they can to start teaching the thriving ways to the young starting as early in their life as possible, but better yet, never ceasing from teaching the old ways back in those times going forward so no skills would be lost.
The knowledge we have lost as a nation, as peoples... so much has long been lost and we need it now the most, is quite frightening.
Glad you liked the vid...there are more to come as I can get to it between chores and rebuilding my garden for improvements and experimentation....
Oh, if you look for their youtube site, they did two vids on taters, and I can't remember if this was the first or the second even though I have watched them through twice it has been a thousand vids since..but one starts their first try, the next season shows imporvemnts and future plans for the next season including re thinking positioning of the specific crops, and numbers needed as they implement their newest lesson on best method for tater growing...
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Great crop of potatoes.
It is shocking how much we loose in regards to knowledge and growing food. But I also think it has a lot to do with the next generation not wanting to know. Technology and fast food, having grocery stores full for so long seems to have tainted many.
By the sounds of many reports the latest situation appears to have sparked an increased level of interest [up to 10x higher for seeds and seedlings I'm told] in gardening for food.
With various online streaming that has tens of thousands; if not more, videos on organic/ biodynamic/ regenerative gardening, there's no limit to peoples ability to learn skills.
Hopefully they will all think about keeping a couple of those spuds to plant out in the garden.
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@Alison A few years ago I read an article of the horrible Irish potato famine. One of the saddest incidents in history, yet one extremely important lesson should have been learned from that:
In summary for anyone reading that is not familiar with what happened: Entire fields of potatos were lost due to I think it was a virus or fungal issue...In a few places the very few spuds that survived, when many many lives were lost due to starvation...the spuds were planted the following year. They infected this crop as well and many more died from starvation as this was their chief crop.
What they figured out, those lives that survived, realized they needed to plant not one variety but at least two so that they had much greater odds of not losing both if one species became diseased.
I don't hear many teaching this but it is critically important to grow at the very least 2 diff species of each of the high nutritional density crops grown.
I understand our earlier generations being sick of the hard work that gardening to survive and thrive must have been, that they would seek out work that paid in the bartering dollar, gold and silver....But all those skills were hard learned so maybe it was because too many times as their children got a little older had no desire to stand in the hot sun with a hoe knowing how hard their parents had worked.
Every one of the hard earned skills for surviving to thrive should have been school curriculum and taught the importance of not loosing those skills so they could keep passing to generation after generation for just such a catastrophe, whether it be a food famine due to crop disease, or a virus spreading across the land infecting people such as we have now. When our country gets to the other side of this, our top priority must be preparing as many as possible now so that those that follow will also know those skills.
I surely agree with you on the technology. Many young people know more about a relationship via facebook, with someone they have never met than people in their local community. It has made us a weaker nation and that is as disconcerting to me as famine.
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One year, I took an old bookcase with lots of square cubbies from the basement and laid it down on the lawn. The kids put several potato pieces with eyes in each cubby and put mulch over them. We didn't cover the grass, we didn't put hay down, we didn't water, we didn't weed. We may have added more mulch once. When the stalks died, we dug for treasure. So much fun! We can't eat nightshades so we don't grow them for our dinner - we grow them for treasure hunts.
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What a fabulous video-I found it amazing-thanks for sharing!
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So cool. Does this method work well in all different climates/regions?
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@annebeloncik For myself, I consider the tater species that do well in my region. Then when I find a species that really interests me but that might be a zone colder or warmer, I would still try growing it/them..but would take care to watch for the colder or warmer time frame and if colder, add more mulch, and if warmer add more mulch and watch for water needs.
Once when I lived in the far North, Ii grew okra and tomatoes and for the okra, I harvested one pod lol rof... But I had fun watching and wondering how it would do....Even though the summers where I lived hit 90 ever once in a while, but over all the very short summers were very nice and comfy temp wise...so if you want to try something new, just take good notes and consider all potential extremes minor or major because you might really surprise yourself.
Also, if you plant one tater whole, from what some experts tell me that will result in less harvest and what they do is cut at least in half with at least 2 eyes.
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