THE BIG POTATO THREAD! (merged)

Yorky

I've planted some seed potatoes in two potato barrels and the idea is to add 6" layers of compost so only the tips of the shoots are showing . With mine, they are growing at different rates so I have actually covered the lower tips and left just the tallest tip exposed.

Will the other ones continue to grow through the compost? I can't see any way around this.

hairymolly

Anyone see the late late last sat. nite? Diarmuid Gavin mentioned growing spuds in a barrel. Anyone know how to go about it?

TheHairyFairy

Google is the gardeners friend :http://www.gardeningdata.co.uk/vegetables/potatoes/potatoes_in_barrel.php

Yorky

I have just harvested my first ever crop of 'Orla first earlies' from my potato barrel. The yield was very small unfortunately- only 2.7kg.I chitted the seed potatoes for two weeks and planted them on 24th March. I added layers of compost as the foliage grew through the compost until the container was full. The compost I used was a Homebase organic one and I watered them regularly and fed with a liquid fertiliser once a week.

Does anyone know why the yield might have been so small? Could the compost have been to blame?

Also can the compost be used again next year or will it be 'spent' now? If so, is it possible to add old compost to a compost bin?

Any help would be appreciated.

The Sweeper

Okay - first, how big was your potato barrel? How many plants did you put in it? If they're competing for room, your yield will be small.

Also, you harvested first earlies - any chance you may have harvested them TOO early? Would your yield have improved if you left them longer?

Regarding the notion of 'spent' compost - I don't know how big your potato barrel is, or how large the drainage holes are, or whether it's on concrete or on soil. I have some large pot plant containers that I sit on a single layer of straw over bare earth. The straw helps it look neater. When I water, I water all around the pot as well as in the pot. The worms actually come up through the drainage holes and into the plant pots - you don't get that if you sit them on concrete.

The reason I mention this is that there are many ways to rejuvenate once-used compost. Adding it to your existing compost heap may not be the best way - commercial compost is very, very well rotted, and the stuff in your compost heap probably isn't. You could stifle the oxygen flow and interfere with the degrading process if you add your potato tub compost to your heap.

A good way to put nutrients back into soil is to plant 'green manure' - a mixture of peas, beans, sunflowers, mustard greens - you sow a bunch of seeds that have a high germination rate and quick plant growth. When they're nearly 1 metre high, you use a shovel to butcher them and mix them back through your soil. They rot down and replenish nutrients. The question is whether this would work in something as small as your potato tub - if you have enough room in your garden, you could just tip the compost out into a designated corner and do a green manure process on it there, keeping it as the area from which you get your compost again when it comes to refilling your potato tubs. Worms are really the key - they have to be able to get into the soil so they can process the green manure you've chopped through your soil.

(Thanks for using the term "potato barrel" by the way. I've just had a moment of inspiration relating to locally-available half-wine-casks and how I can use them, prompted by your using 'barrel')

Minder

I have successfully used compost from potato barrels to grow salad leaves - lambs lettuce and rocket. Seeded straight after taking the spuds - just used a small layer of new stuff over the top.

Reyman

I think you might have a problem growing anything in the spent compost if it's peat based.

The reason is that peat based composts have lime added to them to make the Ph neutral. After about 6 months the compost reverts to peat and can become very acid. So any lime loving plants will not grow too well.

Use it sparingly as a top dressing and you'll be fine

Yorky

Thanks for the detailed reply.

Okay - first, how big was your potato barrel? How many plants did you put in it? If they're competing for room, your yield will be small.

This is the type here http://www.cmsgardens.co.uk/planters.htm
I followed the instructionsa and planted five seed potatoes in each one but someone said that three would nave been sufficient and the yield would have been greater - would you agree?

Also, you harvested first earlies - any chance you may have harvested them TOO early? Would your yield have improved if you left them longer?

I don't think so as they flowered some time ago

Regarding the notion of 'spent' compost - I don't know how big your potato barrel is, or how large the drainage holes are, or whether it's on concrete or on soil. I have some large pot plant containers that I sit on a single layer of straw over bare earth. The straw helps it look neater. When I water, I water all around the pot as well as in the pot. The worms actually come up through the drainage holes and into the plant pots - you don't get that if you sit them on concrete.

Mine are actually on concrete - I never thought about worms getting in to aerate the soil and add nutrients. I've got plenty of worms in my wormery and compost bin - should I add some of these to my potato barrel next year when planting the seed potatoes?

The Sweeper

Compost worms aren't the same type as garden worms - if you bought them from a worm-farm, specifically. Compost worms live in mulchy leaf litter conditions, as opposed to right down in the soil, which is why they function so well as - well, as composting worms! So no, I wouldn't drop a handful of wormery composting worms into the soil I was putting in a plant pot, but I would use some of that good worm tea and worm casts in the spent compost to liven it back up?

ELP

I plan to plant potatoes in a well drained peat bog. i intend to plant the seed on a bed of horse manure. will they need additional fertiliser.would lime help if so when and how should it be applied?

arse..biscuits

Hope the horse manure isn't too fresh. I'd say you wouldn't need any more fertiliser.

Minder

You could try layering up different materials - google lasagna gardens

Anything you'd put in a compost pile, you can put into a lasagna garden. The materials you put into the garden will break down, providing nutrient-rich, crumbly soil in which to plant. The following materials are all perfect for lasagna gardens:

Grass Clippings
Leaves
Fruit and Vegetable Scraps
Coffee Grounds
Tea leaves and tea bags
Weeds (if they haven't gone to seed)
Manure
Compost
Seaweed
Shredded newspaper or junk mail
Pine needles
Spent blooms, trimmings from the garden
Peat moss

Just as with an edible lasagna, there is some importance to the methods you use to build your lasagna garden. You'll want to alternate layers of “browns” such as fall leaves, shredded newspaper, peat, and pine needles with layers of “greens” such as vegetable scraps, garden trimmings, and grass clippings. In general, you want your "brown” layers to be about twice as deep as your “green” layers, but there's no need to get finicky about this. Just layer browns and greens, and a lasagna garden will result. What you want at the end of your layering process is a two-foot tall layered bed. You'll be amazed at how much this will shrink down in a few short weeks.

I'd leave out the pine needles (acidic) and the peat moss (unsustainable), try and build the bed with whatever you hsave to hand.

HarringtonVbest

Hi

what is the proper time to sow the potatoes and is it really important to sow proper seed potatoes. whats the latest you should sow potatoes...

arse..biscuits

Sow them now.
No they don't have to be seed potatoes. If your potatoes in the press are growing legs, plant them.

Aeneas

HarringtonVbest wrote: »

Hi

what is the proper time to sow the potatoes and is it really important to sow proper seed potatoes. whats the latest you should sow potatoes...

Potatoes should be planted now and for the next few weeks. You can use sprouted potatoes that you may have, but it is better to buy seed potatoes that are certified virus free. Most garden centres will still have them in stock. If you are growing a limited amount then I think it is best to plant earlies (first or second earlies) that will mature more quickly than maincrops (the bags of seed potatoes will tell you what type they are.), Each bag has about thirty to thirty-five seed potatoes. It's a good idea to calculate before hand how many you need for your site. For planting dig a trench about six inches deep across your plot or bed; scatter some general fertiliser, like Growmore, along the trench; place the potatoes about 18ins apart in the trench with their eye end (where the shoots are) uppermost; and cover with the soil. Mound up the soil about six inches over the trench. Drills should be about two feet from each other for earlies, more for maincrops. The shoots will appear above the soil in a month or so. As the potatoes grow mound up the earth around the haulms (every two weeks) to ensure that the growing potatoes are well covered and protected from the light which will turn them green and poisonous. Begin harvesting in June.

donegaljuliana

British Queens are my favourite

Thanos

I was also thinking of planting some patatoes however I do have a small apple tree near where I was going to put them.

Is planting patatoes near or beside an apple tree a no no?

lucylu

You will have no problem growing potatoes near an apple tree.. best of luck

There are 3 types of Potatoes
First Earlies
Second Earlies
Maincrop
First earlies are usually ready in around 10 weeks, second earlies in around 13weeks and maincrop after about 20 weeks.

Take a look at these two links

http://www.allotment.org.uk/vegetable/potato/potato-flavour-type.php
http://www.allotment.org.uk/vegetable/potato/potato-growing-guide.php

danjo

Have access to a small patch of ground which is mainly bog. Just wondering will potatoes grow in peat or is it necessary to add something?

niceirishfella

Can you grow spuds in a polytunnell?

The Sweeper

Think a polytunnel would be a little small for spuds, but if you wanted to grow some in potato barrels and keep the barrels in the polytunnel, I'm sure that'd work.

The Sweeper

THE BIG POTATO THREAD

Right, I've merged a few of the more common potato growing threads - I've left out the ones about sourcing seed spuds, but am merging this for information on growing.

This week I'm planting potatoes (because this is also the time of year you plant them in Oz), and I'm going to try the straw bale method. I've a few straw bales, and I'm going to saturate them with water, then saturate again with a seaweed/fish mulch liquid fertilizer. You snip off the baling twine so the bale loosens but you don't shake it apart. Then hollow out holes and plant your spuds in the bale.

Will let you know how I get on - if it works, the advantages are supposed to be a high yield, fewer pests and nice clean spuds with no digging required. If it doesn't work, I'll be using the lot as a compost heap.

Dalouise

I am about to plant seed potatoes for the first time in my life. Someone said you cut them in half to give you more plants? Is it as simple as that, and do you plant them straight away or let them dry out a bit where the cut edge is?

starbelgrade

Dalouise wrote: »

I am about to plant seed potatoes for the first time in my life. Someone said you cut them in half to give you more plants? Is it as simple as that, and do you plant them straight away or let them dry out a bit where the cut edge is?

Large seed potatoes for the spring crop should be cut into pieces which weigh about 1 1/2 to 2 ounces. Each seed piece must have at least one good eye. Cut the seed 5 or 6 days before planting. Hold the cut seed in a well-ventilated spot so it can heal over to prevent rotting when planted in cold, wet or very hot weather. Plants killed by a late spring frost will not come back if the seed piece is rotten.

Cabaal

Bought myself a three patio planter's and some compost as well as some seed potatoes at the weekend, should be interestiung to see if I can actually grow something

Dalouise

Thanks for the advice. I've opened up the bag and most are very small already and they have started to sprout. I think I'll cut the bigger ones and see what happens... they are Maris Piper so I don't know whether they are earlies or not, but the instructions say plant when there is no risk of frost. That sounds a bit late to me.

SoldOut

Lidl have Potato grow bags next monday, they seem to come with seed potatoes, not sure if they come with compost though

http://www.lidl.ie/ie/home.nsf/pages/c.o.20090413.p.PotatoGrowBag

lemon_sherbert

I just spotted this thread now, I'm growing potatoes for the first time this year, in old compost bags, with added drainage holes. They weren't doing much at first, and then last week I gave them a good water with some organic seaweed fertiliser, and they grew like crazy! One stem grew 8 inches in a week!:eek: So I'm very pleased, and have just topped up the plants with more compost. I did however have to conquer my snail fear to remove one who had crept in.

How are you all getting on with yours? I'm really enjoying this, I never really gardened before, but my mum came home with the seed potatoes, so I got out a book and I'm very encouraged by it so far. I got myself some tomato plants to do in the greenhouse too.:)

inigo

Is it too late to start growing potatoes in a tub? If not which type should I go for and where can I get some seed in South Dublin? Cheers!!