If anyone is an experienced potato gardner, I have a question. I planted potatoes in a couple garden plots, with other root crops (beets, Jerusalem artichokes, and carrots), and never got around to digging some sections up (I was all gardened out). I live in zone 4/5, and am not sure if I should try and dig them up when the ground thaws, leave them in, or till them up and throw them away. Does anyone have an idea from their experience. Would they be mushy, rotten, etc? The soil is very good and drains well, but is snow covered. So in may mucky by the time the snow thaws. I suppose I could go dig throught the frozen ground, but wanted to ask someone before I got out the shovel.
One they freeze they’re toast unfortunately and just mush out.
A lot of people over the centuries ‘stored’ their potatoes in the ground, and dug as needed. Haven’t tried it myself; and I also don’t know if that was for human use or as animal feed.
Need to get them out after it starts to warm up, before they sprout themselves into unusability.
Haven’t done it on purpose myself, but here (Z-4) I usually find some I missed digging in the fall, when I do spring tilling.
Sunken Civ mentioned this to me a few years ago during a discussion on spuds. I believe articles were cited, so probably has something on this in the archives.
I think it depends on your freeze depth.
Anything below the freeze line may be just fine.
One of the video’s that I watched had a guy in upstate NY, he put a ton of mulch over his beds and then burlap and let them store in the earth.
Dug them up as needed..
The ones that froze will likely got to compost.
The ones that didn’t will sprout and your potato bed will be a lot bigger than last year.
We had a bed of self propagating Jerusalem artichokes that came back for many years.