[AT] Re: Potato Digger comments

[Grant Brians]

Greg, in our county we have several commercial small scale growers including 
myself. This county is caught up in the rapid urbanization of coastal 
California, but the city of Hollister is under a building moratorium after 
dumping raw sewage into the river when the overloaded sewer plant finally 
BROKE. Boy did that put a crimp in the developers train ride!
    On the subject of potatoes, San Juan Bautista was formerly a center of 
California potato production in the rich clay and loam soils. I discovered 
that my heavier clay is a terrific potato soil by accident.... This season I 
am planting in both sandy loam and clay, go figure. I expect to harvest the 
potatoes that get planted this week in May for the early market, and have 
Potatoes for a good part of the summer to harvest new potatoes. We shall 
see.
    By the way, I am curious who else on the list grows potatoes 
commercially if anyone. Potatoes will be only a small part of the acreage 
this year for me, probably around 12 to maybe 15 acres.
        Grant Brians
        Hollister, California
p.s. The varieties I am growing will not include russet anything and include 
mostly very old heirlooms.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Greg Hass" <gkhass at avci.net>
To: "Antique tractor email discussion group" <at at lists.antique-tractor.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 07, 2006 3:30 PM
Subject: [AT] Re: Potato Digger comments


> In our particular area, many people use old, horsedrawn potato diggers as 
> lawn ornaments.  I still see many of them sitting in fence rows.  I have a 
> horsedrawn potato digger which I bought from a neighbor for $50.  I tried 
> to use it to dig my potatoes for several years (coverted to 
> tractor-pulled).  My garden, which is located in a old 1-acre barnyard, 
> has very mushy soil which would not go through the chain very well and 
> would keep plugging.  So... last year I was able to locate a 1-row 
> PTO-driven digger at an auction that had been used for a small truck farm. 
> It sure works great!  Ironically, despite all of the old horsedrawn 
> digegrs around, I know of only one person in the whole county who now 
> grows potatoes on the commercial level.  However, 60 miles to the 
> southwest of us around the bottom of Saginaw Bay, potatoes are grown by 
> the hundreds of acres.
>
> Greg Hass
> Bad Axe
> (From Michigan's Thumb)
>
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