Using Potato Grow Bags in Colorado by Ellen Goodnight

Photo amazon.com

I will be the first to confess that I am not an expert potato grower. Further, I will admit that I have tried to grow a variety of potatoes, in all sorts of conditions and places in my gardens, with varying degrees of success. Moving to another house set a new challenge as I wanted to grow my beloved potatoes along with every thing else in a rather limited space. Potato plants can easily take over a garden.

I began to to look at alternatives and read about using large fabric bags. Would these really support large potato plants and would I get the kind of yield the advertisements promised? Did I really need to buy the special soil mix and fertilizer the catalog recommended? My potatoes had always grown in well-composted garden soil and done very well. I was  starting to have my doubts about the expense of growing in bags but  I decided to take a gamble.

I bought two large fabric bags, and one bag of the special soil mix and fertilizer. I wanted to compare the yield results of using the soil/fertilizer mix  in one bag and using garden soil mixed with my own compost in the other. I planted Red Norland, Russett and Yukon Gold seed potatoes in the bags in early April.

A History of Saving Seeds By Ellen Goodnight

Saving vegetable and flower seeds is what our mothers and grandmothers did, year after year. Most often it was for economical reasons. If you grew a crop in your garden and it did well, you certainly wanted to grow it again without buying new seed. Saving seeds may have also been

a way of sharing with family, friends and neighbors, especially if they had enjoyed something grown in your garden. Often, our mothers and grandmothers shared seeds from several generations.

Today, we look at saving seeds in a new light. New gardeners may wonder why they should save seeds when there are so many seed catalogs and garden centers stocked with everything from common to exotic seeds. Novice gardeners may not know the difference between an

heirloom seed and a hybrid seed. They might not even know if their seed has been genetically modified. Some may not know for example, that the squash seeds they saved from last summer's garden might not produce the same squash! Additionally, even experienced gardeners may not realize that the genetic diversity represented by pure heirloom seeds is being lost. These challenges can be overwhelming to any gardener. On the bright side, however, "the movement to save pure heirloom seeds has become a global effort, with gardeners working to

preserve and bring back old seed varieties" (Baker Seed).

Patti Douglas – Gardening and Giving by Ellen Goodnight

Patti Douglas "Raised Bed Queen"

Patti Douglas, a Jefferson County CSU Colorado Master Gardener for seven years, could easily hold the moniker of 'Raised Bed Queen' as she tends 20 raised beds in her Wheat Ridge garden. Yet there is much more to this inquisitive and giving gardener.
   
Born and bred in Michigan, Patti was raised on fresh fruits and vegetables from her mother's cooking to produce from an aunt and uncle's farm within biking distance. The seeds of her appreciation for good food and how to grow it were obviously sown in her childhood years.

In 1973, Patti moved to Steamboat Springs, Colorado to ski and lived the mountain life which always included gardening. She moved to the Denver metro area in 1983, attended massage school, got married and had a “darling daughter”, gardening all the while.  Today, Patti still maintains an active Lymphatic Massage practice and teaches Yoga and Tai Chi.   If that's not enough, she is also an artist and a rug braider.