Growing Potatoes Dear Stan; Actually, I just have a question regarding growing potatoes. For the last several years, they have started out looking great, but then about the time the flowers appear, the plant turns yellow and starts to get spindly and very sick looking. Every couple of years I plant them in a different location in the garden, but that has not made a difference. This year, they were hit very hard by hail and the plants did not come back, even though my neighbors, who were also hit by hail, now have great looking plants. About 3 years ago, things like beet tops, carrot tops, bean plants, etc. were left on top of the garden over the winter and rototiled under in the spring. Could this have made the soil toxic? If so, would it not be gone by now, and why would only the potatoes be affected? Eryn Eryn - I am assuming you are, or have planted fresh registered seed potatoes each spring. Growing the white burbank and or the red norland varieties have the potential to grow in adverse conditions. Compacted or low nutrient soils will result in the signs described. The addition of veggie tops in the fall without the addition of granular nitrogen depletes the micro life that composts into useable matter. This fall after the garden is cleaned of the plantings, pick up a bale of Critter Litter from the local nursery or green house.. it is shavings that will break up and aeriate the soil. Apply these shavings to a depth of one or two inches over the area for next years crop, then till in to the full depth of the tiller... at least eight inches. Do not rake or otherwise add any thing else except a nitrogen feed .. three lbs. of 21-0-0 to 100 square feet of prepared ground. Water it moderately and leave till next spring. Use a vegetable fertilizer of 15.30.15 when the potatoes are ten inches in top growth.

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