sallyg said: There's been some discussion here about this too, that CERTAIN potatoes make off the stems but not all. The ones sold as seed where I get them, Kennebec, Pontiac, Yukon gold- have never shown signs of it.
I am thinking of expanding the garden by digging this winter when I can and putting my sprouted stored potatoes there. I'm down to about one meal of large potatoes. Some of my most beautiful potatoes this year were from a sprouted potato someone gave me in 'compost' from their kitchen, that I found growing happily and replanted.
One of my grandfather's favorite sayings; "there is more than one way to skin a cat".
In my 87 year pilgrimage, I have found this to be pretty accurate. Indeterminate vs determinate potatoes became a hot topic about 10 years when potato towers became the latest fad. It only works for indeterminate varieties and most of the popular varieties are determinate. Of course having been in Georgia for my retirement years, indeterminates take too long and succumb to summer weather. I have reasonable yields planting early varieties in February 6inches deep. They take about a month to emerge thus escaping late spring frosts.
Back in Virginia we did two plantings one in March and a second in July. March planting deep, July only about two inches. In my pre teen years, when threshing machine were in use amassing huge ricks of straw we used the lazy bed method. Planted about 3 inches deep and covered with 6 inches of straw. No cultivation and little digging. Potatoes (Irish Cobbler) literally formed between the straw and the soil. Just raked back the straw and raked out the potatoes with a potato hook. What have I learned? Deep planting is an advantage in cold soil when no other cover is used. Disadvantage in warm soil planting and no advantage with a heavy mulch. In any system you have to provide cover as the potatoes develop to prevent greening.
