Potato and Onion Planting

Over the years of gardening I have always been curious about other crops that I could grow. I typically tend to stick with the easier familiar crops like tomatoes and sugar snap peas but every once in awhile, I get the urge to try something different. The thought of planting potatoes has never crossed my mind and still think of it as a very difficult crop to grow. Until now, I never had the desire, but this year I am going to try it out. I did not look at any instructions for growing them until I received the potatoes in the mail in March. 

I put them in a dark closet and left them until the last minute. I think that I have been avoiding it, for the possible dread that after I knew the amount of work behind it could influence my decision and I might avoid it all together. I decided to just dive in and do it. 

When I started my search for tubers online I was only able to find a handful of sites which mentioned selling them, but they were either sold out or not available. This was in December and this may have been too early as I really didn’t know much about them. I started looking again in January and found Renees Garden online. I chose 3 varieties to start with and bought ones that looked similar to ones I typically would purchase at the grocery store. The three varieties are Yukon Gem, Red Sangre and of course I needed try something completely different and chose a low glycemic potato called Huckleberry Gold. 

The next step was deciding where they would be planted and what companion plants that I could grow with them. I chose to also try growing onions which Ive read make good companions with potatoes, At least I hope they do. Here I am Aril 22 and planting them both out. They are the first crops to go in the ground. The carrot seeds were also planted last weekend.

The pictures shown here are of me planting the onions on the perimeter of the potato bed. This was taken after I got off work in the evening so I was a little rushed and forgot to get a picture of the potatoes that I planted. Once they start to grow I will post some progress.