Thursday, March 18, 2010

Potatoes: Sprouts, shoots, and leaves

In just a week and half, the potatoes have really started to take off. In the picture below, you can see the two potatoes sending up shoots.

The potato on the top is the one that I circled last week. It is much closer to the soil surface so it is the first to break through with visible leaves. The other one is still under the soil, so only a couple leaves are visible.

Each potato will produce several plants, so even though the bushiness seems like a good sign, I will need to prune them both back to one main plant. This allows for each potato to maximize the soil nutrient usage as well as total soil volume for itself.

I'll let these grow a bit more, maybe a week or two, before pruning. I want to select the best sprouts.

No comments:

Post a Comment