planting potatoes through black plastic

[Sparkly]

Our master plan seems to allow time to get 1/3 of our 2nd plot underway for planting this season, but I am deciding what is the best way to tackle the rest! 1/3 is currently covered up with black plastic. I am planning to plant squash and pumpkins at the edge of this and trail them over the area. In addition, we will plant some things in large pots and place them on the plastic. I have written off getting this area into order till next year! The middle 3rd is the issue. I would like to plant the whole area with potatoes, but we will not have time to totally clear this. The area has been sprayed at the end of last season with glyphosphate in a bid to get in somewhere under control, but it is full with couch grass and bindweed. If I was to cover the whole area with weed suppressant membrane or black plastic, what is the easiest way to plant the potatoes? Do I simply cut an X and place the tuber 2 or 3 inches below the surface? Will not being able to earth up have a major effect on the crop? Would I be better to dig over the area, take out as much bindweed as I can see on the surface and create trenches as normal? Obviously the bindweed will grow and look awful, but will I get a better yield?

[Sparkly]

[jockomorrocco]

I think iremember seeing a program where spuds were planted in the ground followed by a layer of muck and a layer of cardboard and the chap seemed to get a good crop.If i was wrong (which is possible) someone will tell you im sure

[manicscousers]

yes, we did it that way, on couch covered ground, but we'd had it covered with card, muck  and plastic all winter, then planted the spuds through..only trouble was,it was a bit dry underneath..but it got rid of the couch and the bindweed  :)

[Barnowl]

How deep should you plant the seed potatoes if you use the black plastic method?

[manicscousers]

we used a bulb planter, about 6" deep..we also mulched around with grass to try to conserve moisture  :)

[Barnowl]

But if it's only 6" there's not much earth for the spuds that develop off the haulm as it grows up,  to grow into. Doesn't that mean the crop will be more limited?

[manicscousers]

we didn't seem to do badly from it..the spuds grew under the plastic  ???
we put the grass on the top, around the hole to stop the light  :)

[Barnowl]

Thanks Manics.  I suppose the spuds grow from nutrients provided by the haulm; they don't actually need earth around them - it's just to keep them out of sunlight (hence edible) that we earth up so the black plastic and grass does just as good a job.

Might experiment with grass and shredded paper under black plastic on one of my spud containers to cut down on the amount of multi I use topping them up as the haulms grow.

[leiden64]

You've had good advice already. Only thing I'd add to that is don't try and grow them under weed suppressant material. It isn't dark enough to stop them from going green, even when we covered it with cardboard, they still went green.

My only thing about growing them under black plastic is how on earth do you keep them watered if you have a dry summer?

[manicscousers]

that's the down side, we mainly did it to get rid of couch and marestail with a bit of bindweed thrown in  ;D