Potato Harvest

[Spookyville]

Couple of questions here - firstly is it OK to reuse the same compost next year for planting Potatoes again in containers? (will mix in manure or whatever if needed). ???

We planted up 4 black plastic dustbins (cheapo wilkinson ones), 2 with Carlingford Second Early and 2 with Desiree Main Crop, 5 tubers in each bin. Our harvest was 4.55KG for the Carlingfords and 4.48Kg for the Desiree. Is this good, bad or indifferent? Nothing to gage against seen as it was the first time growing them. If on the low side can anything be done to improve the crop next year? (Different varieties perhaps?)

TIA

[Spookyville]

[saddad]

Better than mine (Yield that is) I wouldn't reuse the compost... just in case. Use it to top dress beds perhaps? Most cheap composts don't have enough body and soon run out of nutrients.. we used some from B+Q depot but it wasn't up to the job this time never mind two years running..
:'(

[telboy]

I think your yield was very acceptable.
Good advice from the contributers.

[tim]

When you reckon that the nutrients in most composts are only enough to sustain growth for ? 6 weeks - no surprise? Hence the need to feed eg Toms when the first fruit sets.

[Spookyville]

thanks for the replies so far.

Acceptable so say mix the old with new 50-50 and add some manure and fishbone etc in to it? (Just don't want to have to throw away x tonnes of grow bag compost everywhere!  :o)


So what does everyone do with used grow bags or containers with it in after use? dig it into garden somewhere?

[Columbus]

Hi Spooky, Hi all  :)

I`ve been throwing mine into my cold frame that previously suffered from poor dry soil, Its been helped along with a mix of rotted leaf mould, horse muck and any used compost from plugs and pots through the year.
The crop of cucumbers from the cold frame has been huge so I guess it all helps.

I also put some over my small tulip bed as a top dressing.

In situations like that you can see where the ingredients are going rather than a random spread across the plot.

Col

[Marymary]

I grew early pots in containers & was very impressed with the yield - swift I think.. I then got some which were supposed to provide new potatoes for Christmas & planted them in August in the same containers with about half of the old compost topped up with our own plus some organic fertilizer.  they grew up beautifully then seemed to succumb to blight & I had to lift them today & only got pebble sized tubas which we've just eaten for our tea.  I put all the compost on to the heap & reckoned there was a lesson there - not to plant in the same compost.

[Kepouros]

It is never wise to grow potatoes in the same soil or compost for two or more consecutive crops.  Many soils (although not usually soilless composts) contain a low incidence of bacterial or viral potato diseases.  A `one off` crop can be obtained from such soils without any noticeable signs of the disease, but the actual growing of the potato can cause the disease to multiply in the soil so that a following crop is more heavily attacked.  However, even when the soil or compost is initially clean the first seed potato planted may already carry the disease (erwinia caratovora - blackleg - and soft rot are examples) and will actually transmit the disease to a clean soil.  That is why a four year rotation is usually considered essential for potatoes.

[LILACSPLASH]

stick mine in the compo bin with some well rotted do.