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To: Pete from Shawnee Mission

I do plan on trying them eventually and I can grow Irish potatoes just fine. Grew some nice ones for a couple of years after adding to the beds some humus that I had scraped up with a grader blade clearing off prior forest to get grass to grow. First year I harvested by pulling the plants out by hand, taters and all. Smooth and blemish free and I think I hit the 7 lbs of potatoes from 1 lb of seed potatoes mark that’s considered highly productive.

Soil is clayey loam, brownish yellow, a bit heavy. It doesn’t take a whole lot to turn it brown and/or fluff it up. Doing that to a great depth is a different story. A long story.

I do have some depth though. Top soil is 12” where the high tunnel is and gets deeper towards the road which is 300 foot away. Got a over an acre of that. Corner post out by the road was easy to dig. Went 30” before it started turning orange/red clay.


481 posted on 10/19/2025 3:48:48 PM PDT by Pollard
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To: Pollard
I have not really been able to grow potatoes here, just not cool enough long enough.

Sweet potatoes are a big staple food in some parts of the world where they have hot growing conditions. Heat tolerance was one reason I was trying to grow it.

One of the things you see on Youtube are are boasts like "I grew 100 lbs of Sweet Potatoes from just one Potato!" if so, that would be a pretty good result. (Setting aside the issue of fertilizer and water,)

484 posted on 10/19/2025 8:04:41 PM PDT by Pete from Shawnee Mission
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