Plant potatoes on Good Friday? And important onion info from Orlan

(update: see end for info on onion planting from The Gazette's own Orlan Love!)

My go-to guy for potato planting – my uncle Craig – is in the hospital this week, so I can't pester him with my annual question of how soon to get potatoes planted. And I know that he would much prefer to be outdoors planting in this nice weather than in a hospital bed, so send good thoughts his way.

Tradition holds that potatoes should be planted on Good Friday, but that date varies every year. In 2010, Good Friday falls on April 2. Here's what the gardening experts at Iowa State University Extension advise:

   Potatoes should be planted in early spring. Appropriate planting times are late March or early April in southern Iowa, early to mid-April in central Iowa, and mid to late April in northern portions of the state. 

   Since potatoes are susceptible to several diseases, buy certified, disease-free potatoes at garden centers or mail-order nurseries. Gardeners can purchase seed pieces (tubers that have been cut into sections) or whole potatoes.

  Small potato tubers may be planted whole. Large potatoes should be cut into sections or pieces. Each seed piece should have one or two “eyes” or buds and weigh approximately 1.5 to 2 ounces.

 After cutting the tubers into sections, place the freshly cut seed pieces in a humid, 60 to 70 F location for one or two days. A short healing period allows the cut surfaces to callus or heal over before the seed pieces are planted. Healing of the cut surfaces helps prevent the rotting of seed pieces when planted. Plant seed pieces (cut side down) and small, whole potatoes 3 to 4 inches deep and 1 foot apart within the row. Rows should be spaced 2 1/2 to 3 feet apart.

Orlan Love offered the following information for onion planting:

I was doing some reading on onions and found out why onion plants do so much better than sets. Onions are a biennial, which means it takes them two years to make seed. The sets have already completed their first year. They were started as seeds and grown in crowded conditions so they don't really flourish but just make the small bulbs we know as sets. They are easy to plant but prone to bolting, growing the seed stalks. Onions that bolt will never really amount to much, even if you snap off the seed head right away. They will weigh only half as much as a regular onion, will be hard and bitter and won't keep. The onion plants, on the other hand, while harder to plant, were started from seeds just a couple months earlier and are in their first year and will never make seed.

 I switched to plants about three years ago and have been delighted with the results. They are harder to plant. You have to pat the dirt firm around each one, rather than just sticking them in the ground as with sets. But they never bolt. Some years with sets, half my onions would bolt. The trouble with plants, from my perspective, is that you can't get your hands on them until aboutmid-April, whereas the sets are available earlier. But they are worth the wait.