Growing potatoes in pine needles

I have an abundance of pine needles on my homestead.
I piled up pine needles and a bit of old straw to a depth of about 16 inches.
I am going to try growing my potato's in it this coming spring.  I did just straw last year and it worked good, but straw costs $.
My pine needles are free.

Depending on the species, you may find that the pine needles get embedded into the potato.

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:Depending on the species, you may find that the pine needles get embedded into the potato.

That would be a bummer.  In my mind I am seeing a nice potato getting acupunctured.   lol  
I hope that doesn't happen!

I am planning on a couple types, depending on what is available here in my part of Montana.
Russets and yukon gold and maybe some type of reds.  I get them at a local nursery that sources from montana growers.

It's a worthy experiment. I think the roots would need to be in contact with actual fertile soil for the plants to thrive. The pine needles, loosened perhaps, would be mulch to protect the tubers from light.

I'm not sure about your soil pH. In my area, the slight acidity of the pine needles would be an asset -- helping suppress the organism causing scab.

Douglas Alpenstock wrote:It's a worthy experiment. I think the roots would need to be in contact with actual fertile soil for the plants to thrive. The pine needles, loosened perhaps, would be mulch to protect the tubers from light.

I'm not sure about your soil pH. In my area, the slight acidity of the pine needles would be an asset -- helping suppress the organism causing scab.

I grew them in straw last year with no contact with the soil and they did ok.  Still got a bit of scab on some of them.  I like the idea of less scab.

As far as soil ph, it varies a lot around my place.  I have 3 seperate garden areas, each with there own little climates and differing ph.

Merry Christmas !!

I'm also a fan of *free* growing mediums, and live in a pine forest. I've added pine needles to soil, and used it extensively as mulch. My concern would be simply the acidity? We have very basic soils by default here, so it only seems to bring balance to my beds. I also will be curious to hear about moisture retention, I feel like needles tend to hold more air spaces in them when we gather and disturb them (as opposed to them falling naturally), and in the mountain west humidity is rarely high. Let us know how the experiment goes!

P. Pitcher wrote:I'm also a fan of *free* growing mediums, and live in a pine forest. I've added pine needles to soil, and used it extensively as mulch. My concern would be simply the acidity? We have very basic soils by default here, so it only seems to bring balance to my beds. I also will be curious to hear about moisture retention, I feel like needles tend to hold more air spaces in them when we gather and disturb them (as opposed to them falling naturally), and in the mountain west humidity is rarely high. Let us know how the experiment goes!

I have used pine needles as mulch before.  It is ok.  I much prefer straw, it breaks down a lot faster than pn.  I found pine needles take about 3 years to break down properly.
The air spaces in the pine needles are of concern to me for the potatoes.  I have well over a foot of depth to them as I don't want "green" potatoes.

I am going to watch this thread to see how this goes. I recently moved from 9a to 6a and also have an abundance of pine needles to cope with. I'm lucky that we have a lot of oak mixed in with the conifers here. I have already started composting piles of needles, leaves, and bark to prepare mulch and raised bed filler for the new garden. Santa brought me a woodchipper/shredder and the idea is to create loads of shredded organic matter. I have already used the needles and leaves in raw form to mulch over the garlic beds and the saffron corms. Potatoes won't go into the buckets for a few months, but I plan to use the same to cover them. I might just try a 50/50 soil to needles and leaves mix in one pot and see what does better. Thanks for the idea!

Here's a video of a local (central North Carolina) extension agent planting potatoes in 'leaf mold.'  His leaf mold is pretty much all pine straw.  It looks like the leaf mold I have around, so I think I'll give it a try this year, too. Looking forward to seeing how it works out for others as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kHeLRrWlTdI&t=151s

You may want to consider the waxy coating on the pine needles cause them to decay slowly. Therefore not releasing the nutrients you need. Some wood ash, aged manure and mixed in with the pine needles may make it nice and fluffy. Create rows of these piles and then the spring  pull back and drop seed in there.  This could give them all the nutrients they need to produce a good crop. They would probably suffer for a good crop if grown in straight pine needles. Would love to hear how your grow goes!!