Do you use a general purpose fertiliser when you plant potatoes?...

[kippers garden]

I've just been reading my new kitchen garden magazine and it has a bit where someone is planting potatoes.  He sprinkles growmore over the soil before he uses the soil to fill the trench with potatoes in.  I don't use fertiliser i just use manure.

I just wondered if people on here use a general purpose fertiliser when you plant potatoes and does it give bigger/better yields if you use growmore or blood, fish and bone?

[kippers garden]

[davyw1]

I don,t believe you will get good results from just using manure or just using a fertilizer i believe you need to use both this applies to all the veg i grow
When my spuds go in i put the manure on top of the spud not underneath and on top of the manure i sprinkle growmore. When i have back filled the trench i again put growmore along the row on the top soil. I don,t just throw it about the garden i put it above where it is going to be needed so it gets watered down to the roots.

[Robert_Brenchley]

I don't use fertiliser at all, but some do what you suggest.

[Tee Gee]

I top dress with growmore prior to planting out.

The reason being is I don't know how much fertiliser there is in the manure plus the fact if I put my muck in with the winter digging any fertiliser that may have been it may well have leeched out.

I only consider muck as a soil conditioner not a fertiliser.

Any that may be in it is a bonus!

[goodlife]

I line bottom of planting hole with compost/grass clippings/ comfrey with a bit of fish, blood and bone meal and seaweed meal..anything and everything I can get hold of.
After blanting I sprinkle on top of soil some chicken pellets.
I find potatoes very hungry crop but I only add feed once and then they do well with just possible watering later on.

[chriscross1966]

It would be hard to overfertilize spuds :D

[pigeonseed]

Last year and again this year, I haven't added anything to the soil before planting pots. The yield was still pretty good (though I'm sure not as high as it would have been)

(The reason is I'm just still engaged in a war with an overgrown allotment and also often only get 2 hours a week to get down there. So I just do what I can with the time. My lottie compost is slow to mature being perennial weeds like couch and so on, and under plastic)

Mind you, I never thought of sprinkling fertiliser, which would be do-able! Think I missed a trick there  ::) - thanks for making me think of it! Before the next lot go in this week I will get some.

but anyway enough about me! Are you going to try it, kipper's garden?

[Paulines7]

I garden on chalk so the Ph is very high here.  I think growmore would increase the alkalinity so I never use it.  If there is something I should be using, I would be very pleased to hear about it.

I dig in compost and then put grass cuttings on top as a mulch and to keep down the weeds.  The only exception was last year when I grew my potatoes in pots and used a potato fertiliser with the multi purpose compost.

[pigeonseed]

That's interesting, Pauline's7, I don't know of a good answer, but I know others will have advice.

I suppose peat would help reduce the alkalinity, but then isn't terribly eco-friendly. sI believe people add fertilisers with sulphur in, but I expect you know much more about that than me. we're on clay even though we're on the South Downs.

[Tee Gee]

I garden on chalk so the Ph is very high here.

This article plus related links might help!

http://www.thegardenersalmanac.co.uk/Data/Soil-Chalky/Soil-Chalky.htm

[kippers garden]

Mind you, I never thought of sprinkling fertiliser, which would be do-able! Think I missed a trick there  ::) - thanks for making me think of it! Before the next lot go in this week I will get some.

but anyway enough about me! Are you going to try it, kipper's garden?

Yes,  I spread blood fish and bone today where my spuds are going and i'll be planting them next weekend. 

Thanks everyone for your replies.  I love this forum as i get so many questions answered.

[lincsyokel2]

This year im using a professional top dressing fertiliser called Sincron (used by farmers), be intersting to see what difference it makes.

[Paulines7]

Thank you TeeGee for the link. 

I use a lot of home made garden compost as the soil does not retain water very much.  The link seems to support this, given my soil. 

The only problem with it is that the compost contains weed seeds (mainly chickweed) from cutting the grass in the paddock.  If I put it on top of the beds, thousands of weeds come up within a few days so it has to be dug in. 

Using grass cuttings as a mulch keeps down the weeds.  A tip from Sarah Supersprout.  For those new members of the board, Sarah was a very helpful member of A4A who was very keen on mulching, mainly using straw.  Sadly she passed away a few years back.

[Tee Gee]

The only problem with it is that the compost contains weed seeds (mainly chickweed) from cutting the grass in the paddock.

My philosophy is; If soil will grow weeds it will grow veg!

Back to the point, my plot is in a 'woodland' setting yet I get lots of 'meadowland' weeds.

I have established these come in with the farm yard manure!

My way of overcoming this is two fold!

1) I dig my muck in in autumn! Then when the weeds come up in spring this tells me the ground is warming up so when the weeds have formed their first true leaves I blast them with a glyphosate weed killer a couple of weeks before planting out.

This gets rid of the first flush.

2) It is virtualy impossible to get rid of all of the weeds so I plant out in a manner that allows me to get between the plants with a hoe until they mature.

I don't plant out too far apart because I want the plant I am growing to act as ground cover to smother most of the weeds.

I find that I am still inundated with weed but I find I can keep them sufficiently under control to get a harvest!

And that concludes my method of keeping 'chick weed' under control.............well nearly under control!

BTW chickweed in the onion patch is not all bad!

When the onions begin to swell they don't need nitrogen so chickweed helps to remove this nutrient!