Topic: " a low ridge "

[Hugh_Jones]

Depends on the length of your spade, EJ. I set mine at about 9 inches below normal surface level, with about 2 inches of soil covering, which is steadily increased as soon as leaves start to form.  But you MUST use fleece (double) with this method or the growing tops will get frosted.

[Mrs Ava]

Groovy, thanks Hugh.  

Shopping reminder, buy fleece!

[kenkew]

I have a tool mentioned elsewhere on here, it's like a short headed fork but the tangs are at a right angle to the shaft. I walk along scooping the soil out towards me. My soil is heavy so this method breaks it up and leaves it in a state ready for earthing up. I normally go down about a spade depth. I cover the newly planted tubers with a half trench depth and earth up to completely cover any folige as it shows. Works for me.

[The gardener]

My preparation is to level the bed to a good tilth having previosly manured it the previous autumn.

Using a 'bulb planter I plant my seed potatoe, at required spacings.

When the haulms are about 6"(150mm) high I earth up with a 'back hoe''

I find I get all the 'taters' that I need, in fact I still have a bag and a half in store.

[tim]

OK - we start learning all over? This isn't gardening - it's chemistry.

I normally put mine in a 5" trench and cover to ground level, moulding as the leaves emerge, mainly to protect from frost on the earlies.

You go to 9", and then put 2" of soil on the seed, slowly building up to ground level?? And then a ridge?

Vain hope that mesh would give some frost protection - double checked with the suppliers and, of course, NO!

Planters - tried the Marshalls' one but couldn't get on with it. = Tim

[Hugh_Jones]

You`ve got it in one, tim. I would add that where I`ve got compost to spare I use it to cover the seed. For some reason most people seem to put the compost under the seed, but if you`ve unearthed a young `volunteer` and examined it you`ll have noticed that the roots actually grow out from the `collar` where shoot joins potato, and common sense dictates that this is the level where the compost will do most good.  Then I simply keep on backfilling at regular intervals, but making sure that the growing tip is not covered to allow the leaf joint axil buds to keep forming.

However, with only a 2 inch initial cover, and the growing tip constantly exposed double Fleece is absolutely essential. I keep this pulled reasonably taut between the ridges on either side of the potato trench, leaving an insulated air space beneath and I`ve never had a frosted shoot yet with this method.

Fine mesh suspended above a crop (but not touching) can provide some protection against a light frost - the tiny drops of precipitation which freeze often have sufficient surface tension to become trapped in the mesh instead of falling through, but the actual insulation factor is negligible, and I would regard mesh protection as being somewhat dicey for early potatoes.

[john_miller]

TG, and for those with limited space, the point about Hugh's advice is that you can get the same yield of potatoes from a smaller area. The more rhizomes (botanically- a modified underground stem)  that are produced the greater the yield per plant. The rhizomes are produced at the leaf axis, so the more buried leaf axis produced the greater the rhizomes.
  As this is approaching introducing economics into home gardening again, and with the gentle ribbing I got about it recently, I will now shut up.

[Garden Manager]

Hugh, I use the 'black polythene method' you mentioned (or rather landscape fabric as this lets rain/moisture through).  I plant the seed about 6" deep through holes cut in the fabric. I suspect from what you and john have been saying that this is too deep for leaf axils to form, and yes i still have to dig them out (not then strictly 'no dig' before you say anything).

However I switched from growing them in an open plot to raised beds (retained by wood)  5 years ago, and have found earthing up in such a system difficult to manage properly . I cannot provide enough compost or straw to employ the other no dig method you mentioned, so while potential crop is reduced, the method i use seems to be the oly one that works. Unless you can suggest an alternative to those already given?

[john_miller]

Not quite, Richard. Your method, which actually doesn't sound too different from TG's, except you use plastic, means fewer leaf axils (oops, I stand corrected) are formed underground as the plants will be stretching to get to the light (etiolation, as in overheated tomato seedlings) rather than inducing normal cell differentation.

[Hugh_Jones]

I also use raised beds. I presume that Richard`s problem is in retaining the soil ridges on the beds once he has earthed up.  I keep a few spare boards which are used as a temporary measure to increase the height of the bed edges of the potato beds and allow earthing up without problems.

Completely apropos of nothing at all, it is perfectly possible, if one is careful, to lift an early potato plant, remove the larger tubers and replant for a further crop.  I have done this many times to get a very early plateful.  There is one recorded instance of a Scottish clergyman (who else) who lifted the same plant 6 times in succession, getting a further crop each time and the total tally was very respectable indeed