The Modern Victory Garden

After taking into account the potato losses from blight last year, I compute that we got 70lbs of potato production per 100 square feet of growing bed.    That is almost exactly the average production from traditional row gardening but no where near the 100 to 200 pounds per 100 square feet that an intensely planted bed of potatoes should produce.   My trenching method produces a reliable harvest but it also is wasting some valueable growing real estate with the wide spacing between trenches. 

So I have decided to up my game this year with the potato patch and see if I can at least double my previous year's results per 100 square feet.    I am going to give the John Jeavon's method a try this year.   This entails doing a double dig and planting the potatoes on top of the loosened soil at the bottom of each trench and then covering it with the soil from the next to trenching process.   The seed potatoes are burried more deeply right from the beginning (approximately 9 inches deep) but in really loose soil from the double dig.   The roots then dig down into the loosened bottom trench area.   You do not hill or add more layers which is appealing in how no fuss it is.   The initial dig is the hard work and I expect it will be no more work than my trenching dig process is.  

The potatoes are planted with a spacing of 9 inches between them.  The next row over is apporximately nine inches from the first and the spuds are offset from the prior row to create a diamond pattern.  I made a planting board today for this purpose - which has spacing marked at 9 inch intervals on one edge, and the same intervals marked on the other edge but offset.  

I am excited to give this a try this year.   I am almost willing to bet it will yield greater results. 

I just found this and I'm going to try this on a small scale (10 seed potatoes) to see how it works. I only had 10 left and a small area. I'll let you know how it works.

Happy St Patrick's Day Y'all,

Garlic Man

I will be doing this planting up in just about one week's time  too Garlic Man!   Plan to share how it progresses through out the season.   Nice green font for a St. Patrick's Day post!