When planting, do you add manure/compost to the trench?
Do you remove all but one chit per potato?
Do you use a potato fertiliser?
Do you always earth up?
Last year was my first year on a plot, and we planted about 10 rows of spuds, and as we didnt have a water butt and there is no water on the allotment , during the dry spell in the summer I watered everything else and just weeded the spuds, as it was hell carrying 40 litres at a time from the car to the plot in 5 litre containers. Had a fair if somewhat small crop, with the earlies in particular being small ( international kidney )
When planting, do you add manure/compost to the trench? = i add a few slug pellets per 6 9 inch hole a few for each spud
Do you remove all but one chit per potato? = i left 3 chits on my spuds
Do you use a potato fertiliser? when they are six inches high i earth up and hoe some fertiliser in and then when a spuds neighbours foilage touches the next plant another dose of fertiliser
Do you always earth up?= yes i earth up from day one its not ardous and it helps stops green spuds
my spuds this year will be rooster pentland javelin and wilja ;D
Quote from: PeterVV on January 03, 2011, 18:50:31
When planting, do you add manure/compost to the trench? = YES
Do you remove all but one chit per potato?= NO
Do you use a potato fertiliser?= see answer 1 above
Do you always earth up? = YES
Quote from: PeterVV on January 03, 2011, 18:50:31
When planting, do you add manure/compost to the trench?
Do you remove all but one chit per potato?
Do you use a potato fertiliser?
Do you always earth up?
Last year was my first year on a plot, and we planted about 10 rows of spuds, and as we didnt have a water butt and there is no water on the allotment , during the dry spell in the summer I watered everything else and just weeded the spuds, as it was hell carrying 40 litres at a time from the car to the plot in 5 litre containers. Had a fair if somewhat small crop, with the earlies in particular being small ( international kidney )
For spuds there's no such thing as too much manure :D..... I'm aiming for at least six inches over the whole of the potato bed this year plus pretty much all the home-made compost on my plot will be used as part of the earthing-up/backfill
The "one chit" thing is a mistranslation of a way to grow big baking spuds.... what you have to do is well before you plant out you cut out all but one chit and dust with sulphur on the cut bits. rubbing off the chit without removing the bit of the potato that produces them just slows down the crop (a bit, not much on a maincrop though) ....
I will if someone has firesale prices on spud fertilizer.... otherwise plenty of chicken poo pellets isn't a bad idea...
I always earth up now cos I'vew tried the weed-membrane technique and had too many green spuds...
International Kidney isn't much of an early, use something like Rocket or Swift or Pentland Javelin that is a genuine early.... just cos something gets eaten as a salad potato doesn't make it an early....
Fraid potatoes need water and a fair amount of it to crop well
chrisc
This will be my 4th growing season on the the allotment and I'm seriously considering either not doing any spuds or limiting myself to just one row or something... The reason? I dont seem able to grow them at all...
Each of the three years I've done things slightly differently with no apparant improvement...
I always dig a trench and I always add potato fertiliser when I plant the tubers and I always keep them earthed up... First year I added manure and shreded paper to the trench, second year I didn't, last year I a few bags of compost... All to no avail... The plants always end up weedy looking (a nice healthy green, just never 'bushy' like everyone elses) and I end up with a rubbish harvest...
Does anyone have any foolproof tips?
Should I put a load of manure/compost over the finished bed as well as in the trench this year?
i dont do trenches i use a fat dibber at least 9 inches deep ;D my spuds are mungos
manure = yes but to the g round generally and not just the trench
chits = don't remove any
fertiliser = never, if your ground is well tended then manure at some point would be enough and even without any my spuds always do great
earthing up = I never earth up, can't be bothered ;D
Manure yes
Don't remove chits
Fertiliser shouldn't need it
Always earth up it encourages more growing and no green spuds
A tip from a Friend EJ, when you have empty bottles at home, collect from friends and neighbours and fill with water and take them throughout the year and store at the plot or pour into large containers and use again.
You must keep the spuds well watered in dry periods. ;D ;D ;D
Cuke - what a shame, it sounds like there might be something wrong. There are some people on here who are potato experts, and perhaps they'll have some ideas about what it could be.
Are they getting enough water?
Are you growing varieties which have a low yield?
Are you digging them up too early? Or are you expecting too much in terms of yield?
Quote from: Cuke on January 04, 2011, 13:55:39
This will be my 4th growing season on the the allotment and I'm seriously considering either not doing any spuds or limiting myself to just one row or something... The reason? I dont seem able to grow them at all...
Each of the three years I've done things slightly differently with no apparant improvement...
I always dig a trench and I always add potato fertiliser when I plant the tubers and I always keep them earthed up... First year I added manure and shreded paper to the trench, second year I didn't, last year I a few bags of compost... All to no avail... The plants always end up weedy looking (a nice healthy green, just never 'bushy' like everyone elses) and I end up with a rubbish harvest...
Does anyone have any foolproof tips?
Should I put a load of manure/compost over the finished bed as well as in the trench this year?
The first year that you put manure on could have been when there was all the problems with contaminated manure. The potatoes would grow but were always weedy looking. Try them in a patch that you have not added manure to and see what happens.
Cuke - my neighbour doesnt get any at all either - thinks it might be eelworm or something similar. Its a bit difficult as he had 15 rods but didnt cultivate for well over a year. I was then given 5 rods of his and he came back. I can grow potatoes on his old lottie - he is still a bit sore about this. But - he didnt cultivate and I had to deal with the 5ft weeds so.....
I still feel a bit guilty though
Quote from: Cuke on January 04, 2011, 13:55:39
Does anyone have any foolproof tips?
Should I put a load of manure/compost over the finished bed as well as in the trench this year?
I dig the trench then line it with manure.
Walk along the trench full of manure to flatten it a little
Place the potatoes sitting on top of the manure.
Earth over with the dug soil or more manure, or some of both if you prefer.
I earth up a bit but after a while, I seem to run out of dirt, so I always mulch mine with a thick layer of stable waste from the local pony club, mostly straw but well soaked with horse doings ;D That way they stay cool, and out of the light and I figure that they get some organic matter in the end when it al breaks down. It was awfully dry here last year but I still got a good crop, even though I barely watered at all.
Similar to Antipodes - mulch with whatever you can get 8)
I'm too lazy to water my spuds (once in a blue moon!!), and rely on the mulching, using grass, straw, whatever I can get hold of. Would also look at what PigeonSeed says about varieties - they can vary hugely as to yield.
1066 :)
ps - loving the top hat Pigeonseed :D 8) :D
I was having a discussion the other day about manure and the straw that comes with it. I didnt realise that the straw was so good as well.
A fellow plot holder told me that some of her best crops of pots and toms came when she used straw. For the pots she dug her trench and layered with manure then straw and placed the pots on the straw and then covered up.
Quote from: Dandytown on January 17, 2011, 11:08:09
I was having a discussion the other day about manure and the straw that comes with it. I didnt realise that the straw was so good as well.
A fellow plot holder told me that some of her best crops of pots and toms came when she used straw. For the pots she dug her trench and layered with manure then straw and placed the pots on the straw and then covered up.
I used straw as a mulch for the first time last year. Planted seed pots with trowel in holes 6" deep (deeper than I usually do) in well forked over, heavily composted soil. They took ages to emerge and I was starting to panic! Mulched with more garden compost then earthed up with a really thick layer of straw, adding more later.
Had my best crop ever and didn't need to water more than a couple of times despite the drought. Also very easy to wriggle out potatoes without disturbing the roots as they were growing just under the straw. Will do it again this year & I'd def. recommend using straw if you can get hold of it inexpensively.
I looove potatoes, hope you can sort your problems this year.
PS never thought of adding straw to the trench?
Also remember not to plant too close together, spuds need lots of room. I tried mulching with grass clippings last season, but the clippings rot down so fast they don't form an adequate cover. If you are not going to leave plenty of room for earthing up, straw is the way to go and just dig it in at the end of the season. As for manure, I layered this seasons spud beds with about one foot of it just before winter set in and there will be more added to it when I get a round tuit. I didn't water at all last season and still got a reasonable crop.
I'm slowly coming out of hibernation, so HIGH ;D everyone. Fingers crossed for a good gardening year.
Sounds like the advice is to mulch - I'll try and do that this year.
Thanks 1066 **preens**
Straw... hmmm it does retain water well and maybe if it is put in the trenches, it gives the spuds room to grow as it rots down? I find that spuds love soil that has as much organic matter as possible, compost, manure, straw, whatever.
I saw a great pile has accumulated again at my local pony club, I will soon be down there with the garbage bags and my fork ;D ;D
If you earth up with straw, do you find it blows away? We're on a fairly exposed site. Maybe I'd need to mix straw and soil?
I haven't had a problem with straw blowing away, I thought I would, but it just kind of stays there - I've used it to make paths, and it stays all season ;D
I'm amazed - on Sunday I was trying to put thick plastic sheeting across a compost heap and it was whipping around my head. But I suppose by the time we mulch the really strong winds will have died down for the summer.
Now just got to find some straw! I'm glad you asked this question anyway PeterVV, I hope these tips help you this year.
Ha ha ! I know what you mean, it seems every time I start to do something like putting sheeting down, sprinkling wood ash, the wind picks up!!
We get our straw from Blackbrooks on the A21 - reasonable price too ;)
My garden is reasonably sheltered, but I second 1066 - straw somehow seems to stick. I use it for paths as well. In fact, I love straw - has a multitude of uses!!
I've got straw on dahlias in the ground atm, we had massive gales last week, some of my terracotta pots blew over, but the straw, admittedly pretty soggy by now, stayed put.
This thread has officially launched the Straw Appreciation Society :)
I used to think you couldn't put enough manure on spuds, and as we have plenty available I always did. After 5 or 6 years I realised I was getting a massive amount of foliage and average yields, along with considerable blight problems. It's a nitrogen thing. Last 2 years I've used granular fertiliser (I'm not organic) - bigger yield, less blight. Gives me a problem with soil structure and how and when I get organic matter into the plot, but I've got plenty of spuds!
That's something to bear in mind. Would leafmold be useful in adding humus?
I used to think you couldn't put enough muck on spuds, but after a few years of huge foliage, average yields and big blight problems I had a rethink.Too much nitrogen. Last two years I've used granular fertiliser and had beter results all round. Need to find a new way of getting organic matter into the soil. If you don't/can't water your spuds you need to have a way of retaining moisture.
Spuds is 90% water!
Quote from: pigeonseed on January 19, 2011, 19:11:11
This thread has officially launched the Straw Appreciation Society :)
ha ha... sorry to wander off topic but I thought of a4a when I was spreading straw for the chickens (it's muddy out there atm). I don't have any sticking out of my ears or clothing, promise - at least, not most of the time!!
Maybe mulch with autumn leaves? That'll keep them moist without providing any nitrogen.
If I drop hay out of the haynets on the yard it never seems to blow away, it just lies there until I brush it up (or one of the horses eat it),LOL.