Potatoes
I begin with certified seed, since it is officially inspected for disease and condition. Potato diseases reside in the soil. Around May 15, I’ll have prepared a bed with 25% or better organic material, a pH of neutral or slightly negative, and a kindly portion of organic fertilizer mixed in and covered with about 1″ soil, for warmth. I do not fertilize any more after that.
I plant potatoes in the bottom of a one-inch deep trench, about 18 inches apart for maximum eating size, and cover with an inch of soil. My family has enjoyed the German Butterball for years, and also a red or purple-skinned variety, such as Dark Red Norland or Caribe.
It is always a discovery of joy when the potato plants begin emerging in about a week. When the plants grow to about one foot tall, I hill them, leaving about four inches sticking out the top.
Hilling allows for upward growth and also aids when I mechanically harvest. When flowers appear, potatoes are established down below. I’ll bring a small friend along to pick the delightfully sweet flowers rather than develop seeds.
I cultivate aisles with the machine and carefully hoe hills for weeds, which compete for nutrients and can produce a bitter potato.
Since I want to harvest before it’s too wet, in mid-September I cut the vines and carry them off the field – easier mechanical harvesting. I harvest on a dry day. This helps my storage be as dry as possible, though I have put them away wet, and are always losses. I store potatoes at 37 degrees, 98% humidity, and absolute dark, with just a little ventilation. They easily last through May this way with little change. Seed potatoes are unwashed.
Eating potatoes are the biggest ones, and I wash them in a trammel-style washer powered by the tractor.
Carrots
I plant when the ground is warm, during the last half of May, just after tilling weeds and fertilizing. Our favorite carrot-growing area is in soft organics, deep, and not wet – pleasant to bare feet.
I plant the Bolero variety in double rows, six inches apart. It is great fun to sow a pelleted seed, from a walk-behind seeder with a seed disk that places seed exactly two inches apart.
This means no thinning carrots, a decidedly unpleasant task. Three intensive hand weeding sessions, spaced just about a month apart, are done initially when carrots are recognizable by their fanned greens.
Small weeds are easy to pull out. Hemp nettle, lambs-quarter, thistle, buttercup, “false dill,” and several others can quickly overrun your carrots when big. Never, ever, get behind chickweed.
I cultivate the 30-inchaisle between closest carrot rows with a walk-behind 20” wide tiller each time I hand-weed.
Harvest in October before the heavy rains come and be sure to top and wash carrots before they dry, or they will be a nuisance to clean. I like to harvest in the rain – a true Southeast Alaska root crop. I store them washed, in large crates and in the same storage conditions as potatoes, but carrots like to be a little wetter so I keep my concrete floor wet.
Scott Hansen