Topic: No-dig and potatoes: disappointment

[cropping]

Hello everybody,

So we decided to try no-dig and planted some potatoes. It turned out the potatoes didn't dig into the soil and just stayed inside the manure. The harvest was quite poor and most of the potatoes were quite small.

For the no-dig method, we just covered the ground (which had relatively few weeds) with about 3-4 inch of rotted cow manure.

Anyone had similar experience? I would appreciate some advice on this.

Many thanks!

[Obelixx]

I think a lot of people will have had small potatoes this year as it's been so dry.

I've grown potatoes in trenches and then ridged them up and now grow them in raised beds with no trenching, just a trowel to make a hole in which to drop a potato.  In each case what makes the difference seems to be water, not the planting method.

[Vetivert]

Potato tubers do not grow down, so you only get new tubers above the placement of the seed potato. They grow out from nodes the main stem on a kind of side shoot called the stolon. That's why traditionally they are hilled-up, or when grown in containers the seed potatoes are placed at the bottom.

I've had good results with no-dig new potatoes. Determinate varieties (e.g. Charlotte) that do not require repeated earthing-up/hilling-up (limited nodes for stolon formation) are best suited. But you still need to come along and apply more compost or straw once they've grown to about 20cm tall, to make sure you don't get greening on the tubers.

If I had to guess I would put your small harvest down to the terrible drought. Potato yields really suffer if there is a lack of water during tuber formation.

[pumkinlover]

I haven't dug for several years but use a long handled bulb planter to plant. Then chuck on all the compost I have spare.

This year has been a fairly good year with some varieties, and as usual Kestrel has been brilliant.

[JanG]

Quite a good year here too. I think some wet weather in May came at the right time to swell the tubers here after quite early planting in March. I agree that Kestrel always performs well.
No blight to speak of because of the hot dry summer, which helped greatly.

[Paulh]

Charlotte and Kestrel both did well, though on the small side mostly. I grew Pink Fir Apple for the fist time and they cropped heavily, though mostly rather small. What a good tasting potato - I will grow them again. The way PFA grew made plain exactly what Vetivert describes, which I had not appreciated. I will make better attempts to earth up or mulch them in future but at least I now have some decent sized green PFAs to use as seed potatoes next year.

No slugs or blight - I wonder why!

[Tee Gee]

I grew Pink Fir Apple for the fist time and they cropped heavily, though mostly rather small.

I am surprised you have lifted them so soon, I usually left them well in to October if not later before harvesting!

[Paulh]

The foliage had on most of them died down, Tee Gee, so no point in leaving those in, particularly if that might give the slugs a chance to get stuck in (and I was impatient to try them). Every main crop I have grown over the years gets mauled by slugs or blight.

The couple of plants that still had some green growth were by a compost heap and had had more water than the others through run off from the cucumbers next to them - they had by far the largest potatoes, so there's a lesson there for me: feed better and water carefully.

[Tee Gee]

so there's a lesson there for me: feed better and water carefully

I think the lesson is more about soil preparation rather than watering and feeding.

I think the ground/ trenches will have to have loads of farmyard manure applied before or at planting time to ensure so that it can soak up any early rain and maintain a regular moisture content in the soil over the season. Watering in weather like we have had this will evaporate if there is not enough humus to retain it!

I always used to dig in loads of muck when doing my pre- winter digging where it rotted down and got saturated over the winter months.

I found by doing this I had no need to ever water my potatoes or any other vegetables.

It’s how farmers do it they spread the muck, plough then plant!

[cropping]

Thank you so much everybody for such good advice! I will apply what you people said, and I think I will do better next year.