You can plant potatoes anytime in March in northern Ok. If planting in bins, you may need to find a way to insulate the outside of them as the weather gets hot. And no it isn't necessary to presprout them before planting. I have many times planted potatoes within a day or two of cutting them. They'll grow when they get dark and wet and warm enough to come up.

I'm glad to here that it isn't too late to plant potatoes I have been waiting for the garden to dry up a little. I hope to plant mine this weekend.

I will attach a link to a site I really like. A lot of good information whether you buy anything from them or not. You can download the Growers Guide. Basically they say the earliest planting date should be 2 weeks before the last frost. I use our last average frost date as my guide and up till 3 months of a major frost date. Also they say to ask your locals. I ordered from them this year and my spuds should be arriving soon. For those of us either on the OK/KS line or in the OK Panhandle our last average frost is around April 15th give or take a couple of days. So I figure April 1st as a good target. Jay

Here is a link that might be useful: Ronniger's

Matt,

I am of the opinion that it is never really too late to plant potatoes. Of course, you'll get the best yields most years if you plant earlier rather than later, but you really never know because it just depends on what Mother Nature does too.

Last year I planted pretty much "on time" and I planted deep. Still, my potato foliage emerged from the ground only to be frozen back three separate times by "late" freezes. Then, on a day late in April, we received 12.87" of rain in one day....actually it all fell over maybe an 8 or 9 hour period.....and whichever potatoes had managed to survive/regrow after the three late freezes then drowned in the soil that stayed way too wet for far too long. So, what did planting 'on time' do for me last year? Absolutely nothing.

After every freeze and the heavy rain, I replanted to replace whichever ones didn't come back, so I got my final replacement potatoes in the ground in mid-May. It was a ridiculous situation (and a very frustrating one too) and I didn't have much hope for a good harvest, but I harvested about as many potatoes as I do in an average year, although they were much later. It probably helped that we had a cooler and wetter summer than average.

I did wonder if Mother Nature was trying to tell me not to plant potatoes, though, since she kept doing her best to kill mine.

So, my advice is to relax and plant them whenever you can. Our spring weather is so erratic here that sometimes when you plant on time it can actually work to your disadvantage. My feeling about this spring is that, despite a few warmer, sunnier days, it still will be cooler than usual and wetter than usual so I'm leaning towards planting most things a little 'late'. I hope to get my potatoes in the ground next week, but I'll be happy as long as long as I get them into the ground any time in March. Furthermore, after last year, I'll just be happy if they don't freeze/drown repeatedly.

Dawn

My dad always planted 3 days after St. Pat's. And in the Dark of the moon.

Dawn, that rain last year is why I bought potato bags this year. I was amazed to get a crop last year after they stood in water soooo long.

The downside of waiting (for the bags) this year was that the only seed potatoes left in town were Atwoods and while their yukon golds seemed ok, the reds were really soft and sprouty, and another customer told me not to plant them.

I usually wait after cutting, but this year just cut and tossed in some sulphur and planted according to the potato bag directions. And I bought a bag of little red potatoes and one of those fancy mixed fingerling bags and planted them too, just to see. Its all an experiment.

Betty,

I already had probably 8 kinds of potatoes in the root cellar awaiting planting time, and then Jay sent me an extra Ronniger's catalog which tempted me into buying even more. Those arrived Wed. but I decided against planting them because of the pending storm. I do hope to get them planted next week, with most going into the ground and others perhaps into containers.

And, because Jay will ask me what I bought from Ronninger's if he sees this post, I'll list them here:

All Red
Purple Majesty
Mountain Rose
Purple Viking
Blossom Fingerling
Purple Peruvian Fingerling
Red Thumb Fingerling

I ordered pretty red and purple ones because I already had several standard larger potatoes like Yukon Gold, Red Norland and Russet, plus Adirondack Blue, and 4 or 5 kinds of the more common fingerlings.

I didn't need more potatoes to plant, but I wanted more. I have no idea where I'll plant them all, but I'll think of something.

What kinds of bags are you planting yours in?

Dawn

I'm hoping to plant next weekend.I just got my garden planted this week.I'm planting Yukon & purple majesty.

Mine from Ronninger's will be shipped Monday. Dawn I ordered Carola, German Butterball, Red Gold and Viking Red. I will see how they perform. Dawn sounds like you ordered potatoes like I did onions. LOL. To be honest I had around ten varieties on my list but forced myself to cut it down to a reasonable amount. I mainly grow them to have to cook with green beans ect.

I've planted some that were real soft that I had bought to eat and they sprouted before with good luck. But would hesitate to pay for any and gamble on them. Jay

Dawn the bags were from gardener's supply. they are a heavy felt-like material.

It will probably be April before I can plant mine. Last night we got 6/10th inch of rain and are getting a very wet snowfall now. From the looks of the weather map, I would say we will get a lot more snow.

Betty, Oh, I've seen those but have been too cheap to buy them. If the ground doesn't dry up, I may have to plant in bags or boxes or something because our ground had just begun to finally dry out and now we have rain, though very little snow. I do think the snow is finally about to hit us. We have some really rowdy winds and flurries and the big storm is just west of us on the radar.

Carol,

I know what you mean. Our soil surface had finally just dried out, although if you dig down an inch or two you still find oodles of moisture. I'm beginning to think I'll have to use grow bags or build new raised beds for the taters or something because it seems like we'll never dry out here.

Dawn

We planted ours yesterday, just the common kinds, Yukon Gold, Red Pontiacs, and Kennebecs.

Wanted to plant my Sugar Snaps since they've been up for 3 weeks and are getting leggy, but decided to wait. The first 75 are already in the garden for over 2 weeks and they're on their own. Hope they make it.

Dorothy,

I have 300 Sugar Snaps/Super Sugar Snaps in the garden growing on either side of a 40' long trellis. Yesterday I built an A-Frame of 4mm plastic over the whole bed/trellis. Maybe the peas would have been fine without it, but they'd already been through overnight lows of 25 and 28 earlier in the week, and I didn't want to risk them any further.

Some years I don't do a lot of cool-season crops at all because we often go from too cold to too hot very quickly here. This year, though, I have a lot of cool-season crops and I'm hoping the cool weather lasts a while, but could live without the cold/wind/snow.

I've overplanted broccoli seedlings too and am going to have to figure out someplace to put them no later than the end of March. I believe some more of our lawn is going to disappear...

Dawn

This has been an interesting thread, I have been thinking of planting potatoes in grow bags or even a box, I just thought it was too late for it, and since my carrots and radishes are not even in the ground (due to the wacky weather) I have not been wanting to "push it"....I just may now, just for giggles.

You have plenty of time to plant anywhere in OK yet. I will be planting mine this week hopefully. But one old gardener here used to not plant his till June. Usually mid to late June and then dug them after the first frost and always had a great crop. If planting late just plant a shorter season variety. Jay

Ezzirah,

Potatoes are one of those cool-season crops (one of the few) that I have found give pretty good yields even when planted much later than recommended.

Last year, my potatoes were in the ground pretty much on time and then subjected to at least 3 late, very hard freezes in April and earliest May that froze them back to the ground each time, and were drowned by 12.84" of rainfall in one day in April and another 6 to 7 inches of rainfall in the next 3 or 4 weeks. I shouldn't have had any potato crop at all, but I did. I just replanted to replace whichever ones didn't regrow after each freeze and had a decent, if late, harvest.

You know, we always rave about how much better home-grown tomatoes are than grocery store tomatoes, but we fail to say that the same thing is true of potatoes. Once you've had fresh-from-the-garden potatoes with their rich, earthy flavor, you just cannot believe how much better they taste. I grow more and more every year and am planting at least a dozen varieties this year. Figuring out where to plant them all and then getting them into the ground this week is my big challenge. It is unlikely I'll get a lot of them in the ground this week if our local weather forecast is right because there is lots of rain in our forecast, but I'll just keep plugging away at it as the weather allows until they're all planted. Honestly, it won't bother me if I don't get them all into the ground until sometime in April because we have to work with the weather/soil conditions we have, and what we have here right now is very, very wet soil which limits one's ability to dig deeply to plant the taters.

Dawn

I knew an elderly man years ago who always planted two crops of potatoes in succession. In July when he dug the spring crop, he simply dropped some of the smaller potatoes back into the holes, mulched and if needed watered them. Then dug potatoes in fall after the frost nipped the tops.

And here I was thinking potatoes were hard to grow! I may have to grab some or couple varieties now!

The only hard thing about potatoes is the Colorado potatoe beetles. If you go organic, you can either get the strain of Bt that is said to work for them or spend a few minutes every day picking them off. That's what DH and I do, being careful to leave the ladybug larvae alone, because they will eat quite a few potato beetle eggs and larvae.

I think the main reason more people don't grow them is because they are so cheap, but like Dawn said, homegrown taste so much better--and they have more protein if grown in good soil.