Hiller stage 1

[countrybumpkin]

Looks like you have been really busy lately, if you get a chance to update your bushhog thread that would be great. Your killing some of us with the suspense.

 

[Bansil]

Oops


:drink:

 

[muddstopper]

I dont plant a lot of taters each year, but I have been planting taters for years. Dad always prepped the soil and then he would hook up my brother and I to one of those old big wheel push plows. We where the mules and he just delighted in saying Gee and Haw as we pulled the plow laying off rows. Dad would bury the tater sets as deep as he could. As the tater plants came up, we would take a tiler thru the middle of the rows to loosen up the soil and then hoe/hill it, covering up the tops. by the time the taters where in bloom we would have a ditch between the rows a foot high. Funny thing is, after all that work, we never grew a crop worth a hoot. We had taters, just not lots of them and mostly small in size.

Present day, I dont ever plow my ground. Its mostly fill dirt with lots of big boulders buried under neath. To plow would only bring those big boulders to the top. What I started doing several years ago, is till everything, then lay off shallow rows. I plant my taters almost on top of the ground and then use the hiller attachment on my troybilt tiller to cover the sets. One year, I didnt even lay off rows, just laid the taters on top of the tilled soil. Doing it like this, my taters are generally up in about 2 weeks. I then will run thru the middle of the rows again with the tiller and hilling attachment and cover the tops up. At this point I am done tilling and hoeing. I will go back and fill in the trenches between rows with a composted wood mulch. I like to fill the middles to the top of the hills with the mulch. This mulch provides weed supression as well as helps retain moisture. I have found the new taters will grow all the way out into the middle of the rows, some the size of footballs, ( a little exageration, but not much), and seldom find any sunburnt taters. Once the taters are dug, I till the decayed mulch back into the soil. I do similar to planting onions and always have baseball size onions. My personal belief is that taters and onions dont grow down into the soil, they like to grow out. Making wide hills with plenty of mulching material seems to work for me. I plant about 30lb of seed taters yearly, which give me 4-60ft rows, so I aint trying to grow on a large scale

 

[Everhard]

Last year I just planted what ever potatoes I could get my hands on. This year I'm debating if I'll do specific varieties or not. I also did a couple sweet potatoes a bit later as an experiment and those came out pretty good too so I'm going to do more of those.

Last year I dug a pretty deep trench that I set the potatoes into, but having read y'alls posts I'll definitely try planting them much more shallow. I'm new at all this. Funny given I spent quite a few years earlier in life working for a produce farmer who had his own market but mostly he dealt with the crops for the market and had me working fields for stuff like soya beans or corn or wheat etc. I kick myself for not paying more attention to the growing process.

Thanks for the info though! And my apologies for the hijacking of the thread. I haven't looked but if not maybe we should start a look what I'm growing thread.

E.

 

[muddstopper]

My thought is its not how deep the taters are planted, its how wide the hills. I want loose dirt under the plants and the hills wide enough to keep the taters from busting out of the rows.

I like the op's hiller, beats walking behind a tiller. I do think I would take it one step further by adding a seat and a drop pipe to drop the taters and cover them at the same time.

 

[Bansil]

My thought is its not how deep the taters are planted, its how wide the hills. I want loose dirt under the plants and the hills wide enough to keep the taters from busting out of the rows.

I like the op's hiller, beats walking behind a tiller. I do think I would take it one step further by adding a seat and a drop pipe to drop the taters and cover them at the same time.

Now that sounds like a mod to do this summer! Thanks for the idea

 

[TnAndy]

I like the op's hiller, beats walking behind a tiller. I do think I would take it one step further by adding a seat and a drop pipe to drop the taters and cover them at the same time.

You'd never convince my wife to use it. Her theory is potatoes do best if you carefully lay them in the row with the sprout pointing up, versus merely pitching it in and covering. She won't plant them until they have a sprout out 2-4".

I tend to think you can pitch them in the row and they will grow no matter what.....just might take a bit longer for the plant top to appear. I can't imagine commercial planting like the wife does it, but she does get fairly quick results with tops....so maybe she has a point....we're eating new potatoes for lunch today !

 

[muddstopper]

Now that sounds like a mod to do this summer! Thanks for the idea

Yep, find you a old lawn mower sulkey for a seat, a 3in piece of PVC to drop the taters down, and someone brave enough to ride behind you and drop the spuds. I have actually seen old tobacco planters used for planting taters. Instead of dropping tobacco plants, they dropped spuds. I almost bought a tobacco planter just for that purpose, but I dont plant enough taters to justify the equipment cost.

 

[Everhard]

Lol I spent many hours on the seat of a transplanter planting peppers and damned if I remember what else. It be fun to do but my garden isn't big enough and there's just me, myself and I here and we're all fighting to drive the tractor so no one to sit on the transplanter.

E.

 

[Bansil]

Lol I spent many hours on the seat of a transplanter planting peppers and damned if I remember what else. It be fun to do but my garden isn't big enough and there's just me, myself and I here and we're all fighting to drive the tractor so no one to sit on the transplanter.

E.

you just need a few 45* elbows and and longer PVC pipe :laughing:

I have only sat on a tobacco planter once, I think that was our 3rd or 4th date 17 years ago