Allotments 4 All
Produce => Edible Plants => Topic started by: vaca on September 27, 2005, 22:29:45
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I was wondering if Xmas potatoes need protecting against frost? One of my allotment neighbours said they'd never make it ???
Thanks
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Yes.
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So what's the best method to protect the little darlings?
Mine are now between 6" and a foot high.
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That wonderful stuff, fleece, again??
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My xmas spuds are in old compost bags sitting on the patio.
I am thinking they would be better sitting in unheated greenhouse.
Advice please...
Debs
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You will probably stand a better chance of them surviving if you have then in a greenhouse. However you will also have to manage the greenhouse properly- prompt watering as required obviously but you will also need to manage the atomsphere to avoid promoting fungal diseases, especially blight, and it may act as a magnet for pests.
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john_miller,
What about leaving my spuds outdoors but in a sheltered frost-free
area, protected by fleece??
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It should. Simply closing your greenhouse doors/vents (you can ensure a through air movement?) on a frosty night should work, although radiational cooling could be a problem, or even cover them with fleece inside the greenhouse on cold nights. Other tricks you can use are very small sources of heat (lightbulbs) in the greenhouse or constant spraying of water over the plants (widely used in Florida to protect citrus crops during the winter) to take advantage of the heating effect of freezing water- the could be done inside or out of course. It gets down to how much time you have and money to spend!
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Bl**£y dog!!
Has used one of my bags of spuds to bury a bone in all
foliage has bent or semi-snapped. Hope it is OK >:(l
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I just push pots up against a brick wall when frost threatens - the wall acts as a storage heater and releases it's heat at night.
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fleece I ordered finally arrived today :D ...what's the best way to use it? can I just lay it on top of the plants? or does it need to be supported off the plants in a polytunnel structure?
thanks,
vaca
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I just lay my fleece over the top, loosely, and weighted it down with bricks.
I have no idea if this will be enough protection or not.
Fingers crossed!
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Not strictly relevant but I saw the heading and it reminded me of the old, now late groundsman at the school I used to work at. I asked him once as we skulked together in his hideaway, discussing how his spuds were always so early, "When do you plant your spuds, Arthur?". To my surprise he said, "Christmas Day". "Don't they get frosted?", I said. "Every year", was the reply, "But they always come again!". Must be a moral in that somewhere. Incidentally Arthur was forcibly retired when the County Council found out he was 75. About ten or twelve years later when I thought him long gone I saw him walking home from a local Naval Establishment with a spade over his shoulder. Stopping the car I called to him and asked him how he was and what he was doing. He said he was working for the Navy as a gardener! He still looked about 65. I put it down to his early spuds. One of the nicest blokes I have met. He regularly sent some of his early freesias home to my wife. He told me once, when I told him about my small collection of cannon balls dredged up from a local lake that he earned a living after the war by doing the same and selling them for scrap!
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The school in which I worked when I lived in Northern Ireland used to regularly win the award for the best-kept grounds in the province. The groundsman's name was Harry Scott and I can remember him (now 35 years on ) cutting the lawns with his scythe. As a young teacher I would allow the class to watch when he slowly passed our window. Every two or three passes of the scythe he'd pause and deftly run the whetstone up the blade. He maintained the lawns like the finest golf course greens, using nothing but his trusty scythe. Good man too.
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This week, I will be mainly storing my spuds ... in wardy's raised beds .... no raised eyebrows please ! ! !
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the foilage on my xmas spuds just disappeared about a month ago!
stupidly, i assumed this was ok ::)
now the only way to tell where they were is by the stick row markers.
reading your posts i guess this means buying supermarket spuds this year after all :'(
can anyone tell me what i did wrong? (apart from waiting til now to mention it :-\
Tara xxx
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Seeing the topic for this thread, I managed to protect my Christmas potatoes from growing ... selected a few international kidney, exposed them to light for a few weeks, planted them in buckets at the middle of September? Nothing. Zip. Nada. I didn't think I could make such a failure. So no homegrown new spuds on my Christmas table this year ... ???
Derekthefox :D
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Well...
did anyone have any success with growing christmas spuds?
I managed to grow 8 very tasty ones, which I shared
with my mum in a salad ( turkey & ham!! ;))
I shall definitely be giving them another go next year.
The fresh taste was superb :P
Debs
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Yup, a decent bowl full of new potato size spuddies. And very nice they were to! Grown in large pots in the greenhouse, earthed up, then forgotten about. ;D
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I planted about 25 tubers this year (being my first) i got what we all thought was blight i was advised to cut the plants off straight away. NOW i am digging up my loverly pots. so far i have dug up 4 - 5 lbs I still have more, which this weekend i shall be lifting
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We had enough for 5 of us to enjoy on Xmas Day - had already lifted some for 2 previous meals so was afraid that there wouldn't be enough to take to MiL for the big feast.
Taste was superb - will def. do again next year.
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My rocket and my ketrel are still chitting away on my computer desk - wonder if they will be alright to plant for next Christmas ???