Dang tators rotted in the ground

I've never done potatoes and just bought a few reds to try...can someone tell me please how to cut them before planting? Halves, quarters???

I don't know if anyone mentioned in this thread about sulfur powder. If I have it around that's what I do with my cut planting spuds. I daub them in sulfur powder. It helps prevent fungus attack, though if it's prolonged wet and cold , even that isn't a guarantee.

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The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man.

no. not wood ashes! Wood ashes will promote scab.
I never put ashes in the garden where I'm going to plant potatoes for that reason.

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The human spirit needs places where nature has not been rearranged by the hand of man.

alkaline soil will promote scab. i doubt a thin film of wood ashes, or lime as i have heard some folks use, will have an impact on the general ph of the soil. hopefully,it may help to kill any fungus and prevent rot.

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this message has probably been edited to correct typos, spelling errors and to improve grammar...

"All that is gold does not glitter..."

An old fellow just down the road (passed on a couple of years ago) would put his cut planting potatoes in a burlap bag with lime and shake them up real good. He also claimed that if you didn't step on them in the trench before you covered them up, they wouldn't grow right.............

My opinion is that it is best to cut a potato so that there are about three eyes per cut section. I like to keep a fairly good sized section so that means I actually vary from two to four eyes in order to keep the section of fair size and also to not make a bunch of odd cuts.

Each eye will normally produce a growing stem. Those in the know seem to prefer about four stems per plant for good production. The more stems there are usually means more potatoes per plant, but of somewhat smaller size. I prefer larger potatoes so try to hold to three stems.

Slightly crowding the plants will yield the most total production, however the potatoes will be smaller. I also prefer to space my plants at about 24 inches since I have plenty of space and like the larger ones. Your choice.

Since you are new to growing them you may wish to know that you can gently dig around the plants and rob a few of the new crop potatoes to have with creamed peas, etc.

What color shirt were you wearing when you planted? Did you pray to the potato God at midnite the nite before and then sacrifice a bag of potato chips first?

It's amazing all of the things that work or don't work when it comes to gardening. I've had mine rot usually when I get caught up in the frenzy and plant too early or probably got seed potatoes that were bad possibly frozen. My friend at the feed store loves everyone planting earlier every year. He gets to sell them more seed potatoes and more plants.

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"Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self confidence"
Robert Frost

Thanks Windy!

This is what chaps my hide every year. They come out with the seeds earlier then time to plant and everyone goes on a buying freenzy. By the time it really is time to plant you can't find what you want.

Down here in my cold creek valley it can frost anytime up to the 1st of May. But if I wait till the middle of April or last of April to buy any tomatoe plants, there won't be any to buy. Just the other day I saw people walking in Walmart parking lot carrying several crates of tomatoe plants. It wasn't even the end of March yet and here we still have a good month of frost to worry about.

I need to grow my own transplants but I don't have any room anywhere.

Jeez guys!
planting spuds?
we're still waiting for the last lot of snow to disappear!
Last year we planted late May and it was STILL too early!
When we lived in Ireland, earlies had to be in by St Patricks Day (17th March)
Most our neighbours here do the moon thing, seems to work

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Babies so far in 2009,
9 Tamworth piggies, 8 dorset lambs

http://dundasheritagefarm.com

here in south pa, it is always said to plant on the ides of march (15th) or st. patty's day. i waited until the end of april or beginning of may last year and had nice spuds in july-august, but i wanted to use the same space for a fall crop this year so i figured i would try for an earlier crop.

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this message has probably been edited to correct typos, spelling errors and to improve grammar...

"All that is gold does not glitter..."

What is a dust bin

British : a can for trash or garbage. Courtesy Merriam-Webster on line search dictionary.