we are planning on putting ours in this weekend
now i have seen the trough and mounds
do you dig a trough, plant potatoe and then fill with soil and then when green shoots appear then mound up the earth from the middles ? ? ? ?
? ? ? ?
its something i dont understand
A lot of people use a ridging tool on a rotavator, this cuts a channel and piles the soil up each side, otherwise you have to hand dig it, which when your planting 180 seed tates means you have to dig like 180 feet's worth of channel, thats a lot of digging.
I then use a bulb planter to plant the tates at the bottom of the channel, then rake the earth back into the channel and into a mound straight away, that way you get them in earlier and the mound ouf earth protects the tates from ground frost till they appear six weeks later.
You have to mound them up at some point, im of the 'mound -them-up-from-day-one School a Potato Plantery :D
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Dig a trench about 6 inches deep, plant your potatoes and fill in the trench. When the foliage is about 9 inches high fork over the soil between the rows then draw hoe the loose soil up about 6 inches around the stems. Some people earth-up a little at a time but this is the one-step method which I prefer. :)
thanks
so i dig the trench and plant pots
then when the plants are 9" high i drag the soil from the space between plants to form the ridge
have i got it right
This my way, I put my line down then draw out a couple of inches with a claw hoe, so I have a small trench, then dig a hole six inches down every twelve inches, throw in a bit of leaf mould and pop the spuds in, back filling with compost, manure and growmore. ;D ;D ;D