From St. Patty to Uncle Sam: Planting Potatoes and Corn

The traditional time to plant potatoes around here is on or around St. Patrick’s Day.  We were a week or so later than usual because of the weather.  

When you have a friendly neighbor who lends his time and tractor the planting is much easier. 

While the trenches are dug, the seed potatoes are prepared. It is best to cut the potatoes so that an eye is on every section. Some just quarter the potatoes regardless. I suspect it doesn’t matter that much.

Before the potatoes are dropped about every 8 inches into the rows, fertilizer is spread. We planted about 110 pounds of potatoes this year. 

 With the remaining prepared rows we planted G-90 corn. This seems to be the corn of choice and the variety we have grown every year.  It is a very popular sweet, hybrid corn that does well in this area. 

A kernel or 3 is dropped every 6 inches. In the past we have sown  3 or so kernels every 6 inches. However this year we are experimenting. Could we cut our costs by a two-thirds by only planting 1 kernel for every 6 inches and still get the same yield? We had differing opinions. We'll just have to wait and see.

Finally the implement is changed and the rows are covered.

If all goes well we should be harvesting the potatoes around July 4th and eating sweet corn soon after.