When I was growing up we raised/sold potatoes for winter use. We planted anywhere from 1,200 to 2,000 pound of seed each year and planted all by hand. Our method was using a 5 gallon bucket to carry seed and then we would walk heel to toe in the furrow dropping one seed per step and then would step on it to firmly hold it in place so it wouldn't move when covered. Never worried about eyes being up or down. When covering we had a similar implement that was home made. We only cover with enough soil to make the furrow level or slightly raised. After potatoes are up about 6 or 8 inches we would go back over and hill them up. Would hill them again when they were at the tallest point that we could drive over them without hitting the plants. While this all sounds like a lot of work, it was nothing compared to harvesting them with our old digger that was converted from being horse drawn to be pulled with the tractor. It brings the potatoes up and drops them on top of the ground and then we would use the 5 gallon buckets again to pick them up. I still have and use that digger to this day, but for WAY less potatoes.

I grew up on a potato farm. It makes no difference if the eyes are up. Spacing only changes the size of potatoes. We grow for the French fry market so we do large spacing of 18 - 20". Superiors are a great early potato. They go for $1/lb here. On the depth we always put a light covering from the planter and then add a bigger row once they pop out of the ground. Thanks for the video!

Several months later... farmers in China are puzzled by potato plants emerging at random in their fields...

I like this video, showing everything your not supposed to do. I will be curious to see how it all turns out and what the crop is like.

Never worried about the eyes being up, and we've always had great taters! In terms of them lasting a long time, select Yellow Kennebec or Red Pontiacs to get your best shelf-life. We keep ours in dedicated refrigerators in our basement. They need cool, dark spaces to store well. An old root cellar is another good place to store them.

Mom told me my uncle Billy planted corn to early this year,the ground hadn't warmed up enough and sure enough he's not harvested very little corn this year! Really enjoyed this video 💜

I can't seem to find any here in NC Tim and really was looking forward to fresh potatoes. Also when I have problems with my tractor wanting to drift I will lock the differential to help and be sure your in 4wd of course loose stabilizers don't help LOL. Stay safe and well during this crazy time were living in right now.

LOL@middle buster! Mike and I need that too:) I'm not sure if we will fit through our door once this quarantine is over. LOL Now we are walking and gardening vs snacking:) Great video Kristie and Tim! As always, love the humor:) I think your potatoes will be just fine:) You two have an awesome day, and thanks for the great video.

I wish you guys would have planted one row completely eyes down and one row completely eyes up.... but hey the weather had been cold! So I don't blame you for just wanting to get it done. I really liked this episode, very informative. I love gardening, so any help I can get is appreciated!

I’m a dairy farmer from New Zealand I like to watch your vida of the little tractors

we always covered ours with thick straw and I am talking 65 years ago worked great and still does

I just received my new hiller/bed attachment yesterday. Great video to get me going! Thanks a bunch!!

Thanks for showing us your potato experience. Helps us planning to try our luck. God Bless.

I believe the heavy hitch puts the covering tool to far from the wheels. If the implement was closer to the tractor I wouldn't wonder as much. A slight turn of the steering wheel is exaggerated more behind the rear wheels the further the implement is extended.

I’ve planted potatoes cut and whole. I seem to get more potatoes when I drop a medium sized potato whole spaced at 16”. Of course, 18” would work fine too. I never worry about the eyes, up or down. I have a “story pole”, which is a 2”x2”x8’ board with markings on it for spacing. In this case, 16”. I used a magic marker. I drop the story pole in the trench, drop potatoes at each mark, and when I reach the end of the pole I move the pole ahead 8’. If you don’t want to bend over, mount a handle on the pole. I use the handle of a hoe to scoot the potatoes to the correct spacing. I’m going to be 70 next month and my back doesn’t like bending over much. One year a got 1:12.5 return, which means for every one pound of potatoes I planted I got back 12.5 lbs. That’s a great return. I read once the best is usually 1:10. Have you ever checked your return? I weigh mine after washing them. Yes, I dig then lightly rinse them off. No scrubbing. I made a couple boxes, 8’x2’ out of 2x4’s. I stapled 1/2” hail screen on the bottom. I set these cages over saw horses in the sun, near a hydrant. I rinse and the dirt goes out the screen bottom. When clean, I leave them in the cages to dry in the sun about 30 minutes, turning if needed. They are clean and dry and ready for my basement. I have potatoes till about December sometime. (I harvest the third week of June).

My Dad was the Potato King. I helped him till I got married. He would always plant them with their eyes up. ( just because they came up faster) 16 to 18 inches apart. a small handful of triple 13 fertilizer in between the potatoes. Do not let the fertilizer get near the potatoes or they will rot ! As the potatoes grow, the roots will get fed by the fertilizer. Also, dirt heaped up a little to start with. Then later he would hill them up with a tiller as he tilled. Not sure this method will work where you live but it always worked in Missouri !!!

Love potatoes...we generally grow about 400 pounds a year. For our growing season we plant around June 15th and yes the eyes are always up🤔

Down here in Georgia we try to plant potatoes on Valentines Day. I try to plant eyes up about a foot and a half apart. Doesn’t seem to matter if they land eyes up or down. I usually let them dry for at least a week after I cut them and they always turn out great. Just picked some yesterday.

We grow potatoes on are farm 8 acres of them we plant the early potatoes eyes up but it’s harder to do you have to have two people sat on the planter And then the rest we just put in the hopper of the planter and it goes anyway Eyes up or eyes down also they are to shallow it needs to be fairly deep and frost is bad for them so you want to make sure you plant after the cold it may be different in the US but that is how we do it in the uk love the videos keep up the good work 👍

Hi Tim. I bought the same setup a couple of years ago. Love the middlebuster for making the trenches but I too have a problem with the discs wandering all over the place. Just a small amount of movement in the front end results in a lot of movement of the attachment. Maybe if it was closer to the rear wheels it might track better. I will watch the comments to see if someone has a better solution. Thanks for your videos. I bought my Johnny because of you!

Pretty funny! We are finishing up potato harvest here in South Florida. Two more weeks left!

Thanks Christy and Tim! Nice black soil. If you read the small print, the destructions say " alternate planting potatoes and onions so that in drier weather the onions will make the eyes of the potatoes water" HAHA

Well, I certainly appreciated this demonstration. I am building my first garden this year that involves my 3520.....so it is bigger than our backyard City garden. I oddly enough was looking at both those implements from heavy hitch, but the exchange rate and shipping to Canada is crazy right now. I will be very interested in seeing how these taters turn out.

I always plant on good Friday, never worried about the eyes. always bury deep 10" or so. Generally I get a good crop usually around ten to one seed potato to yield. This year we planted 400 pounds and only harvested around 100, we had a terrible potato bug issue. I love watching your channel.

I planted mine last week (we already got 70F here in northern germany, so thats not an issue). We don´t cut the potatoes in half, so it doesn´t matter how we throw them in the row, we just made sure the depth is correct..

I love planting taters too; 2 ozs go down, 3-5 lbs come up! I always mound, then drop the tater in a couple inches down. Last year I tested just covering them with a really thick layer of straw, no dirt, and they did very well!

instructional, and hilarious. One way to learn is watching someone else make mistakes...especially when they correct themselves for you!

we always plant appo. 12 in apart in furrow. covered by dragging dirt to cover with feet. rows 30 to 36 in. apart. plant as early in march as land could be worked. potato seed were just dropped by hand never worried about eyes up or down . planted 50 lbs irish cobbler and get about 400 lbs to store and always eating new appo. 50lbs new potatoes before digging main harvest. this was in the 50s. this is in va.

Seems like when you turn your "bow" just a bit, your "stern" attachment moves quite a bit in the opposite direction?? And perhaps the 3 pt stabilizer bars were loose too.

Stabilizer your hiller and drive straight. Start with your discs wide. If you have to change your disc deth, angle or width, you can adjust.

When we planted all we ever used was Kennebec and Red Pontiac. Planted 25# of each. We had more potatoes than we could eat. Didn't worry about the eyes up. Stored them in the basement. My Papaw always said you got more in a crooked row. We used a Super A with cultivators to lay off the rows and then cover.

I bet they will still make. I've planted mine 8 inches deep plenty of times and it worked out but I'min LA (Lower Alabama)

When planting potatoes I walk in the furrow bottom wearing my size 11 boots, drop a potato with each step you take just in front of your boot, that way you plant them a regular 18 inches apart. I have never worried about eyes up or down, except maybe for my earlies. I plant about 100 yards this way.

Great Vidya Tim. You will surely develop a bounty with all those, provided they get the right conditions. A man told me years ago, when I said that Idaho was where potatoes are grown, that the best potatoes are grown in St. Anne, Illinois. Their sandy loam has the perfect drainage, and paired with irrigation it was claimed that you couldn't get a finer spud. God Bless.

Planted some grocery store russets and some strange purple asian sweet potatoes. Been 30+ years since I planted a potato so posted a video of either a strange new weed or the beginnings of a potato plant. General opine is my taters are coming up.Russets and not the others. They seem to need much warmer weather maybe.I agree with the misses: taters are pretty cheap at the store but my misses wanted me to plant some.

If you have a straight blade put that on with loose sway chains for hilling so the blade will keep it straight and if you need minor corrections it can still stay on row vs tight chains and a small right or left correction can wipe out your row

Your hiller is very similar to one I have that is maybe 75 years old. The difference being is my blades are mounted on a 6x6 wooden beam.

May need to adapt to your wet soil on that patch Tim... Perhaps next 2 rows, hill the soil just a bit... 6" above grade first? Then plant 4" or so deep so the "feet" are above the water line? Spacing so close (4") may mean those spuds need add'l fertilizer and/or other trace elements (after soil test) to get size to 'em. Be a great follow up video to compare the options for planting, get votes from the sub's and declare a winner?

Well that was a learning experience for all of us !

Tim, congratulations on keeping your equipment clean.

In the south we always cut the eyes out, plant eyes up. Must plant on Feb 14th. In a former life while in the seed business if we hadn't sold seed potatoes by Feb 14th they went unsold.

Your dirt looks amazing.

Well you finally did it, not the potatos, made me buy a new tractor. I just got a new 1025r TLB with a 60" mower deck. I was considering the Massey, Kubota, and Deere. I looked at the other two but did not drive them, neither the Massey or Kubota seemed to have the fit and finish of the Deere, and the Deere dealership here seems very responsive, and I like the foot pedals on the deere better than the Kubota along with many other things. It works out well, we bought a new LX178 that is still going strong and I have a Deere 4300 that I ordered in 98 but its a shuttle shift not hydro. The wife loves the hydro. Thank for the great videos, keep up the great work.

Tim Christi very interesting and learning about planting we are still having frost most old timers say don't plant until Memorial Day God Bless All PaK

You"ll be fine, more potatoes than you know what to do with. We planted here in So IL last week of march, they are all ready coming up.

Run the tractor in 4wheel drive and it will help stop the wandering. The Other Tim with Tractors

Also if you use cut seed you can put cement dust on them to seal the cut sides of the potato so reduce the chance of collapse and rot

Great info guys!

ha! i liked the buzzer sound and the red x-boxes. made me laugh quite hard. lol we always planted eyes up and one length of ur shoe or longer, back when i raised some taters, and i had some very nice ones back in the day. over a dozen bushel one yr. now ur gonna need some new crates for ur harvest.

You did everything just great! Enjoy your hugh potato crop.

Great information Tim 🇺🇸🚜 🚜

Machts Nichts. They will grow just fine eyes down. You do need to space them out a bit more though. Down here in Georgia, we plant potatoes on Valentine’s Day😳. That was an old tradition passed down. We can get 3 crops of potatoes in unless we have an extremely early frost. Of course, I also plant some 115 day field corn on July 4. We will have corn ready to eat around the end of October.

I am positive that you will get potatoes! We used to do the old car-tire stack, and always got a bonanza!

Putting my potatoes in this weekend. Nothing like a nice fresh potato with some butter and salt!

Remember Tim Patience is a virtue

Definitely an 'eye' catching video!

This video made me laugh 👍 good stuff

Not sure about those grocery store potatoes. Is it just certain varieties that are resistant to sprouting? We only buy 5 lbs. of Russet potatoes at a time and keep them in a cool dark place and they still seem to constantly sprout eyes.

I run a market garden, plant around 2000lbs every year. It doesn't matter which way the potato lands and spacing is about 4-6" apart on the planter.

Good luck getting that to work covering straight. I have the exact same problem. Have not been able to figure it out

I wonder if you should have had the cultivators off, or raised up so that you could just cover them. It seemed like they made it wander.

The eyes are the beginning of the root the go into the ground then put the stem up to the top. Yes I have planted store bought potatoes AFTER they start to sprout

Hi Tim and Christy you can win them all Tim but nice video good luck and stay safe

Tim, a couple of years ago I had an awful time staying centered on the rows when I was hilling. My sway turnbuckles were as tight as they could be, never did figure out what was causing it. I kind of came to conclusion that the S tines were deeper than the discs and maybe were digging in sometimes, that was the best I could come up with. Now, last year if you look at my hilling video my hiller couldn't have run more true, just one of life's little mysteries I guess.

i love all the tractor content...always informative. Question...i need a trailer to haul brush/soil/rocks ect occasionally and be able to haul the 1025 r. So a dump trailer that can be double duty. What do you recommend? Thanks..

Great video!

You should check at farm store Like Tractor Supply or Farm & Fleet. They carry all kind garden seed ect.

can you show me how to connect the middle buster blade to the Shank???? my shank doesn't have holes that match the holes in the blade. thanks

I have one I just got it this year 2021 love it❤️ I have it on my Kabota🐝

Is that the same as on Stoney Ridge Farmer a few weeks ago behind his Ventrac?

I'll bet you'll yield all spuds you'll want. Fun to see the red "X"s.

Ten bucks says your potatoes will be just fine!

It don't matter. Tim's planting a little to close for me but if that's what he wants then that's ok with me. Shoot we used to plant ours with old JD planter listers it planted them deep and they all ways came up and we didn't hafta heel them up.

You may need to knock the top of the hills down at some point since being planted deep, then hill them back up again later on with a wide tooth cultivator. Disk are ok for planting, but not hilling...

As far as the eyes debate, don't worry about it, maybe a few won't come up but usually not important. However planting them so close to each other will result in a bad development of the new potatoes I'd say. And as you already pointed out any bad looking seed potatoes throw them out. Oh! And don't worry about the depth, I'm sure they will also be alright

We use to have some leftover potatoes that sprouted in the box, and I would take the box out and just shake it down the row. Sometimes the potatoes would even land on top of each other, and then cover them up. You didn't have to dig very far down the row to get a mess of potatoes. The eyes when they sprout will turn upward just like any other plant. Do you think that commercial potato farmers make sure the planting machine turns the eyes up. Store potatoes are treated with IBA Indobutyric(sp?) acid to prevent growth. and if you buy individual potatoes from display type areas they are also covered with wax.

You should plant the fourth row because maybe a potato shortage from covid 19 , if you have to many potatoes you can always give them to the food bank. Just a idea.

Tim I've had potatoes 5 pound out of a 20 pound bag from the store turn into seed potatoes and turn into 10 to 15 pounds of potatoes and it doesn't matter if there cull potatoes or store grade

Welcome to the world of soft earth drift on a slight grade, Tim. LOL...

I have never worried about eyes up, I just drop them in the row and cover them up. I did notice that it looked like one of your discs (right) looks angled more aggressive then the left side, could that be your problem following the row?

We use old potato planter and digger. The eyes don't matter when we cut our potatoes they have to have 3 eyes. We plant ours in mid May. When we harvest ours we can the small ones and sell them at the church with all profits go to the church.

Cut and place in a bowl of cement the cut side and set off to dry. Cement dries fast and protects. Eyes should be upright as the shoot grows from there and a shoot will turn around but is stronger going up. That is from Mom and Dad who planted together before WWII and afterwards. Both are flying high now.

What do you spray the plants with? I plant Superior they are a great potato. This year it’s Superior and Yukon Gold.

I think these attachments that attach to hitch receiver are at an disadvantage because rather then two points of stability at each side of 3 point hitch, those attach only at one point and in center, so naturally outer sides will want to sway a little. We are building one today, see how it goes.

I looked for a video on how they turned out but couldn't find one. How did they turn out? Were they too deep?

Maybe a dry run or two next spring to get the tractor and its operator dialed in ...

When I was at home in NW Ohio we planted potatoes close to Memorial Day

Never seen a tater planted that way! lol, I plant mine about 16 inches apart, then I put about a heaping cup full of fertilizer between the hills. I usually plant 75 pounds, the fertilizer usually equals about the same weight as the potatoes.

Gramma said eyes up so they can see the sun. Peas on Good Friday.

This year our local source of seed potatoes as well as Hoss tools sold out of potatoes before our garden was dry enough to plant. No potatoes for us this year.

I loved the video Tim and Christy, your going to have pounds of good eating potatoes you can be sure of that. My potato plow is much larger than the one you're using, Your ground looks so well tilled with weights on the back and a bucket full of stone the tractor's tires would have made a trench deep enough to plant the potatoes.👍✝️🙏👈

For what it’s worth, the disks appear to be at different angles. That may be causing one disk to exert more force on the tractor than the other. The soil looks to be loose enough that it wouldn’t take much effort to slide the tractor sideways.

A whole lot of peeping going on there! LOL

I don't know about you getting potatoes however I did see that you got a number of red "x". Thanks for the video. By the way your wife is very patient!

As an old potato farmer I have plenty of advice. I haven't grown any since I lost my potato farm 25 years ago, didn't have the heart to. I do get the joy (sarcasm) of watching my old field be planted and harvested each year. Being in North Florida it was planted in January and is ready to harvest now. OK, enough self pity. This year I had a few potatoes in the pantry start sprouting so I decided why not. Store bought potatoes are treated to slow sprouting but it wears off. Only plant them after they start otherwise they will just rot. I cut up two white potatoes and had three red ones. After they had healed for three days I planted them in my garden. Last week I dug mine up. I had planted them 12 inches apart and all were good sized. I got half a five gal bucket full. I guess I still got it. Now for the advise, first, go ahead and mark your rows with the hiller, that way the discs have a path to follow next time. Also take those tines off. Then use a narrower middle buster if you have it to make the planting furrow. Rows the width of your tractor would be perfect, just follow your tire track to make the next row. I have one of my old farm tractors (1971 John Deere 3020). It is set up with 80 inch tire centers so I make 40 inch rows with a middle buster dropping back one row each time. I doubt this late the soil will freeze even if it snows. I know northern farmers plant fairly deep and then when sure it is not going to freeze again they drag some of the soil off of the top of the row so the soil will warm up. Here we do not worry about that and will disc soil on top of the row if the first planting has emerged and a frost threatens. I have covered up potatoes that were over a foot high. We then scrapped the dirt off. Oh yeah, it messed up the yield but freezing to the ground would have been worse. I just subscribed, give us a heads up before you do anything else, me or another person might have a tip. I don't think you want another eight X video. good luck.

nice trarler good video work gos on vinne do thing god bless &all

We have a jd 770 and a 790 and the chains to keep the 3pt links together are always coming loose

I ordered my seed potatoes and nursery stock in February, still haven't received them as of 4/29. I received an email last week from the company saying that overwhelming demand and Covid-19 is causing shipping delays. Their customer service is shut down, so no one to contact. I emailed them asking why orders placed early aren't shipping 1st. No response! I'll be looking for a new company for next season.

so what kind of yeild did they produce? or did you do that for other means?

Informative video. Even a video full of mistakes is as good as a video on doing it all correctly. The audio came out great when you were dropping the potatoes. Were you using a lavalier mic?