Our Growing Potatoes

Follow Rochdale Gold, Blue Sapphire and Odyssey During the 2020 Growing Season

Many of you probably grow potatoes in your garden. Those first new potatoes in the summer are so tasty and need little preparation, a little (or a lot) of butter and a BBQ is all you need. Good luck with your crop. If you want some recipe ideas check out the Ontario Potato Board’s website: www.ontariopotatoes.ca.

For your interest we will post some photos to show you how our Rochdale Gold, Odyssey and Blue Sapphire are progressing this growing season.

Planting – June 7

Once the ground is warm and dry enough seed pieces, weighing 40 – 70 grams are planted in hills formed by the planter as it moves through the field in straight rows. Some starter fertiliser is deposited with the seed piece.

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Sprout – June 20

The seed piece most often has small sprouts by the time it is planted. The sprouts have a lot of work to do, using the nutrients from the seed piece as they grow and push through soil when the sun takes over and the leaves start to grow. You can see a sprout and the cracking of the ground shortly before emergence.

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Hilling – June 30

The next job that we must do in the field after plants have emerged is to “hill”. This is simply a process to move soil on top of the small hill made by the planter so that the potatoes will be well covered as they form and grow. Depending on the growth rate, amount of rain and other factors hilling may be performed more than once in the same field