Topic: Potato Growing

[Bath_Bun]

Hi everyone, this is my very first posting so bear with me if I am going over old ground!

I have my allotment for the first year this year and am off to the garden centre tomorrow to buy seed potatoes (Arran Pilot earlies).

I am getting conflicting advice on how to plant them.  I know the basics of trench size and width apart, etc, but some people tell me to add organic matter, some say not, others say add slug pellets, some do not.

Help, I am drowing under conflicting advice!!!

[rdak]

Hi Bath_Bun,

You will always receive conflicting advice on every crop, everyone seems to have their own magic recipe that works for them. I grew potatoes last year in clay soil with lots of standard compost dug in, added a few scoops of chicken pelletts and watered loads. I earthed up with a combination of compost and grass cuttings, whichever I had to hand. Occasionally used a general liquid feed. I had a largely perfect crop with just a few taken by the slugs.
I've heard other people swearing by adding grass cuttings, a sheet of newspaper and comfrey to the trench when planting. Also, resting the tattie on some sand to prevent eelworm attack.

As for slug pellets, it's very much down to personal preference. I think most people here in principle do not want to use them (myself included) because they aren't organic, but when the attacks start happening, a lot of people will give in. I've had moderate success with beer traps, but I really solved the slug problem in my garden by going out with a torch and kebab scewer at 6 in the morning! First morning I got about 80, then 60, then 30 etc. After a week, I had trouble finding any. Appreciate it's more difficult to do this on an allotment!

You probably feel deeper under water for all this...but that's the way it is! Pick the advice you want and give it a try.

rdak

[tim]

Why not keep it simple for the first time? Many folk will have their own fancy ideas, as rdak says - but you can always add refinements later. Unless your soil is really awful, you'll get a crop.
There is nothing wrong with trowelling a hole - or digging a trench - and just putting the pots in at the advised spacing. Earth up as necessary. My only variations are;
1. I add potato fertiliser to the soil that goes back over the pots. It does help.
2. I put a couple of slug pellets in the hole (you can't tell me that they are going to pollute the crop! And you can buy organic slug killer if you wish). I cannot prove that these prevent damage, but at least I don't get damage. As to hunting slugs - I may well be wrong, rdak, but I have always thought that the wigglies that went for pots were the little black b.......s that are always underground?

I reckon - start simple, and meanwhile read up the ideas that have been voiced in several 'potato' threads, and visit the sites created by at least a couple of members. = Tim

[minerva]

:D I have to ask  is your plot in bath?  I am on lower common, just by the crescent
sam
xx

[Bath_Bun]

Hello all

Many thanks for all the postings.  I think I probably will keep it simple.  Perhaps try just a couple of slug pellets in the bottom of the trench just in case (I am pretty much organic).  I would be devastated at the first attempt to lose too much to the little blighters.

Hi Sam, yes my plot is in Bath but I am at the Monksdale Road site which is luckily directly at the back of where I live.  Its really open but a real sun trap, however the winds to whip across.  There are also a few problems with delightful children who pay us visits.  I had a tiny patch last year, enough to grow a few carrots, turnips, beetroots and cabbages) but have expanded to half this year.  This will be my first full season.  I am really excited and am busy planning what to grow and where at the moment.

What's it like over by the Crescent.  It has always looked pretty sheltered to me.

[ciaozzy]

Now wheres ower Hugh

Bath_Bun... coffee is an organic alterative, i tried it last yearand suffered no slug damage whatsoever.. hugh done a big experiment and made his findings public on the bbc boards which sadly is now lost..


I think if you use a 50g jar of cheap coffee and add hot water to it then add this to 2 gallon watering can, and water the ground bfore planting, you will fnd that slugs wil leave the area cuz coffee is very toxic to them..... Hugh would be so much better at explaining this than me.... but coffe does work...

Oz

xxxxx

[flowerbaby_uk]

ta for tip will try this  :)Hugh if are reading boards please would  you come and explain in more detail?
flower :)

[tim]

As said, Hugh will elucidate but, meanwhile - if damage is caused, as I believe, by the little black horrors, the concoction must go down at least 4"? And does one really know that there were slugs there - and that you put them off?

I find that most damage is done when things are left in the ground well past their lift-by date, and other food is becoming scarce, or the ground is very dry. = Tim

[The gardener]

I go along with you Tim!

The other thing is;.............putting stuff under the SEED potato  ???.......is this not a waste of time  ??? ......it rots away and the new potatoes form above it, meaning these additions could well be superfluous.

Far be it from to put people off............I was always taught'

If something works for you, carry on with what you are doing, choose what other people say

[RSJK]

affraid l agree with Tim on this subject, mixing slug pellets with your fertilliser is a good idea, and is a practice that most farmers use today.   ;)

[Piglet]

Assuming your potato patch is dug over - Digging a trench !! Are you mad ??  ;) I have had equally successfull results using a bulb planter as digging a full trench and going the whole hog on preparation - think i'll stick with the bulb planter! Saves on Radox.

After you have done 1st earlies, 2nd earlies, salads and maincrops the idea of trenches wears off then onto bean trenches.  (Where I feel your efforts will be better spent) not to mention earthing up especially as its your first year you'll have lots of work on.

I usually scatter chicken manure pellets and dig / rotivate in beforehand.

Piglet.

ps, (carefull selection of potato variety helps) - I have had alot of success with 'NADINE' which is a 2nd early variety keeps in the ground well and even stores.

[tim]

NO darling -  I'm NOT mad (in my estimation) - that is exactly why I gave two options - the easy and the less easy way. Yes?

And Richard - not exactly - just a couple of pellets in each hole or 'area'. Not that I dispute 'your' method.  = Tim

[Piglet]

Not you Tim  :-* the poor chap / chapess who was contemplating digging trenches on a new site !

I just feel in the beginning there is so much work involved in clearing a site, you could spend all your time digging and end up with no crops in the first year.  At least if you have something growing along side an area your clearing its a positive feeling.

[tim]

Good God - I got a KISS - wowee!! = Tim

[gavin]

Hi Bath_Bun - I'm just another one to jump in!  

Ask 2 gardeners, you get 2 opinions; ask the same two about potatoes, and you get 4 opinions!

Ah well - if you can, I'd put a layer of new mown grass in the bottom of your potato trench; result - scab infested grass mowings, and scab free potatoes!

As for slugs, I've not had any earlies damaged;  second earlies and main crop, yes -- but some varieties are VERY much more prone to slugs than others.  Kestrel have never been touched - and they're good cropping, well-flavoured, good storing, - at least on my plot.

I don't use slug pellets at all - partly after reading http://www.cf.ac.uk/biosi/research/biodiversity/staff/wocs2.html .  I "like" the slick marketing -  the 3% poison lasts 48 hours, the 95% bait lasts for weeks - attracting in slugs, justto remind you to buy another tin!

Good luck - Gavin

[minerva]

dear bath bun, sorry not to reply sooner, but my boyfriends been at the computer at home so it no longer feels the will to live,  the allotments behind marlborough buildings are realy sheltered, but they donn't let dogs on or let you put sheds up, might spoil the view for residents!  so i am on the ones slightly down the hill, where we are much more relaxed, its a south facing slope so very nice in the summer but very windy now,  Bath recon they have no spare allotments at the moment so i geuss we were lucky!