It was time to have a peek under the hay and harvest all of the ruth stout potatoes due to blight setting in. Take a look to see how they did considering these were planted a month later than normal and also had no rain for about 2 months!
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I love that your bringing more recognition to Ruth Stout. Great video Huw!
Hi, does it NEED to be hay or can it be straw ???
You didn't wait long enogh. The leaves should wilt before you harvest.
As watering is concerned, watering time is measured in hours, not seconds.
BTW Since potato blight is caused by moisture, the most likely cauce of the blight is the hay.
The area around the potatoes are probably never dry.
Realy good vid
"How much hay should I use?" Ruth Stout, "More."
Huw, those are really white legs. A little sun will produce a lot of Vit. D for you.
Is that hay or straw? I am new gardener.
Mice love no dig potatoes.
I used straw and it worked really well. I had to harvest now because of some blight (Northern Germany) . But the spuds are a decent size.
well, i wold not use that method based on the results, but, next timee, u can leave the plants on the graund mor time. other idea is to split the diferent shoots of the potato instead of the full potato because the if u do that potatos will get less per plant but bigger in size. i usually crop when the skin of the fruit doenst skinning. if the leafs are starting to get yellow and sick i usually leave them untill the potatos complet the full cicle of time. i work with a variaty of 90 days and i never crop them before or i can compromize the storage. hoppe i helped, with 25kg of potato seeds i croped about 200kg or more of potatos this year i nice variaty called BARAKA from Dutchland. best regards
You may try to let the weed grows first. When they get old, cut it but don't throw those weed away, put them where you have cut. Put potatoes and then hay like you did. If you see weed, just cut it, put it there, more hay.
Very interesting! Did you continue with the Ruth Stout method?
What should I plant before potatoes?
While there are good beneficial companion plants for potatoes, there are also plants that can cause disease and growth problems. Before planting potatoes, keep the following in mind: Raspberry, tomato, cucumber, squash and pumpkin are more susceptible to developing blight if planted with potatoes.4 Apr 2018
Gr8
I don't think you're supposed to harvest potatoes until after the plants die off.
Thanks for the excellent information, Huw. Really looking forward to trying this myself.
Too much hay
Too much hay
Thankfully my dog let me know in the fall that I had rodents chewing my potatoes growing in my hay beds. So I harvested a little early, but still had a very good crop grown with the hay method. But I feel that growing in the hay allowed a very accessible food source for the rodents. They had made lovely tunnels all through the beds and left me with partially chewed on potatoes.
I have used her method and enjoy it a lot. However, I want to incorporate deep mulching into tall raised beds. Getting older makes me desire kneeling and stooping not at all. I just read your book veg in one bed and love it. I think with a little investigation about frost and planting dates, I can adapt it to my new garden in a very cold, somewhat dry northern climate. Thank you. Your videos are quite visually appealing and so full of information. Thank you.
Your plants look like they aren't quite ready to be pulled. I never harvest my potatoes until the plants start dying off.
What do you do with the small potatoes and the green potatoes?
The Ruth Stout method was to throw hay down on the ground, then throw the seed potatoes on the hay (or straw) then cover the potatoes with more hay or straw. I see you prepared the soil and planted your potatoes in the prepared soil. This is NOT the Ruth Stout method. She also never watered her potatoes. The hay or straw kept her garden damp.
This my third year of growing potatoes the Ruth Stout way. I throw old hay down about 6 to 8 inches thick, throw my potatoes on the old hay and cover them with more old hay about one foot thick. Then I walk away until late Simmer when I pull the hay apart and gather my potato crop. No digging, no plowing, no tilling, no watering. I've had wonderful success growing my potatoes this way and will continue for as long as I have a garden.
5:10 these potatoes definitely could have benefited from another 2 to 3 weeks of growing. Many people wait for the tops of the potatoes to start dying back to harvest but either way this is an excellent video.
I learned a lot.
I was never able to grow potatoes in our Arkansas red clay soil. The last two years I covered the ground in cow manure during the winter. I placed the potatoes on top and covered with 20 inches of rotten hay. last year i got 6 x the amount that I planted. This year a much larger patch I planted 50 pounds of Pontiac red seed Potoatoes. They are already blooming.
Thanks Huw, your videos are always really helpful and interesting. I've planted potatoes under straw for the first time this year, and the plants are looking good so far (fingers crossed…). I noticed that you were careful when adding hay to the plants to place it around the leaves rather than simply throwing it on top of them. Do you think that if you had just tossed the hay on top of the plants, the plants would have grown their way through the hay? Or might it have impeded their growth. (As you can probably tell, I'm looking for the lazy way out….)
potatoes all varieties need water especially after the first 20 – 30 days where they start showing leafage. I am watering them 2-3 times per week and will stop doing so and avoid any extra moisture in the last 20 days before harvest. I also started this ruth stout experiment this summer for the 1st time. Its been 18 since the 1st day and my potatoes started popping out from the straw. I am pretty excited.
I watched your video from 29 July 2016 and the crop seemed heavier and the hay more rotten. Any comment?