As the weather turns nice in this part of the world (sunny and warm for last 5 days) it is time to get the soil at the startup farm ready for the upcoming planting season. I did the soil preparation for my potatoes last fall when I mowed my fields and windrowed the hay. It rotted down over the winter. I have about 3-5 inches of hay mulch to plant my potatoes into. I plan to plant some this weekend.

I may only plant my Norland early potatoes this weekend. About 150 lbs of Norland potatoes. I'm speculating that the hay mulch can act as a "forcing" environment. It should heat up better than ground covered potatoes during the day when the sun is out. At night it should be insulated somewhat by the hay mulch which should protect it from frost damage (still danger of frost for another month or so). I will "hill" my windrows with new cut hay around the middle of June. I have several other varieties of potatoes to plant (mid seasons, long seasons). Not sure if I will plant any of these as well this weekend.

If I am successful at growing potatoes in this way, the next question is what I will do with all my potatoes?