Potato Planting

Getting the seed potatoes ready to plant.

Today we cut the seed potatoes... all 2,000 pounds of them. Seed potatoes come as whole potatoes, in good condition, and growing eyes. We chop them into egg size pieces, being sure that we have about 2 eyes on each piece so they will be able to sprout once they go in the ground. We grow about 10 varieties of potatoes, including Yukon Gold, French Fingerling, and German Butterball.

We planted about 1,200 of these potatoes in the ground today on some land that we lease for many of our storage crops. We love our potato planter! It allowed Lisa and Douglas to plant all of these potatoes in just one afternoon. The potato planter has

Douglas on the potato planter.

disks and a shovel on the front which makes a trench for planting. Then, it has a hopper which fertilizes this trench. Behind this it has wheels that grab the seed potatoes with spikes and puts them into the ground. Finally, it has wheels in the back which cover up the seeds in the ground. This is all in one implement!! Not only does the potato planter save us a lot of time because it is so fast, it has the added benefit of fertilizing as it plants, which is environmentally friendly because we only have to make one tractor pass over the field instead of two. It is awesome and we will be able to finish planting the last 800 pounds tomorrow. Woo-hoo!

The view from our fields.