The Grand Potato Challenge
Posted by Fiona Nevile in Cottage tales, Vegetables | 15 comments
Home grown potatoes
“If we have thirty feet of ridges , three potatoes wide, spaced a foot apart, we’ll need 90 seed potatoes. I’ve only chitted 2 kilos of seed potatoes. We won’t have enough.”
Danny and I were digging in our rich vegetable compost into the new potato border.
“We can cut the potatoes as long as each section has at least one eye.”
“Really?”
“Yes. I remember my Dad sitting on a wooden butter box and cutting up the potatoes with his sharp knife.”
Suddenly Danny has been fired with enthusiasm. Enough to overcome his loathing of outdoor work. The Grand Potato Challenge has finally brought out the competitive potato gardener in him.
He looked up planting, earthing and caring for potaoes on www.Google.ie. We motored down to Newmarket to buy more sulphate of potash and a bottle of whisky to guzzle a glass or two after a day on the potato bed cliff face.
“My ridges will be perfect with the potatoes evenly spaced. I want them to look good as much as I want to win the challenge.” Virgo to the bitter end.
It was fun working in the garden together, chatting as we forked in the compost. Potatoes need a lot of fertiliser in the soil. I was delighted. Digging alone can be wearisome and tough.
If you prepare the beds well, vegetable gardening is easy, maintenance wise. And there’s the rub. I’ve taken shortcuts in the past and the harvests have been thin. Even if you are longing to plant seed it’s well worth taking the time to dig your beds deeply, perhaps once or twice more than you think is sufficient. Incorporate loads of home made compost and scatter over potash of sulphate. The former is slow release goodness. The potash is a quick deft buzz, old fashioned but effective.
Everyone knows that the more that you put into your soil the more that you will take out. But the enthusiasm for planting can deflect from concentrating on the main shot. Incorporating good organic compost in Spring and Autumn, will reap benefits over the years. It’s slow but steady process. Beware, nitrogen rich fertilisers can initially give great results but can bleed the soil dry of nutrients in a handful of years if you use them too lavishly. It’s probably best to think slow and convert as much kitchen waste and lawn clippings as possible into compost. Wehave a compost heap that is managed by John Coe and a compost bin for kitchen waste and the chicken poop, managed by me.
John Coe and I add the compost from the twelve redundant grow bags to the kitchen garden borders in the autumn. And I dig in the greenhouse compost in the spring along with the rich compost from the burgening kitchen compost bin. Gradually over the years the soil in our kitchen garden borders is improving. I discover that the earth looks and feels better each spring. I rake off the stones and dream about a friable earth future.
We’ll leave the new potato plot to rest for a few days before we make the ridges and Danny plants the seed potatoes. Meanwhile, I have sprinkled potash of sulphate on John Coe’s two rows of potatoes. He has to have a sporting chance after all. I suspect that over the summer, I’ll be tending his two rows whilst D triumphs over his patch. The earth is so much better in the new patch. Wonderful text book soil. We are now planning to dig up half of the rose walk. The same friable soil with the prospect of loads more edible treats.
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My allotment partner and I finished planting out our spuds yesterday. A very early (rocket), a first early, a second early, two main crops (and some mongrels lol). It fills half the plot but the plan is to break up the soil which was completely overgrown and rock hard last year. As my partner is moving further away and will be without transport for a while we have roped in another friend to help so there will be 15 people across three families to eat the anticipated potato mountain – thank goodness!
Hi Sebbie
Home grown spuds are so much sweeter.
If you get a great harvest you can store them in sand and they last for ages.
Ever the optomist I’ve planted two sprouting potatoes that I found at the back of the cupboard – while searching for a saucepan lid – in an old compost sack. Waste not want not!!!
Hi Carol
My mum used to visit a very old lady who did the same and she ended up with a bucketful of spuds from just three!
Ohhhh I hope you get a great crop of spuds this year Fiona. 🙂 I grow a few in my potato barrel and they are always a treat to have. Also trying a grow bag this year with some in. It is a bit different than the growbags that come with compost in them. Just a black bag with holes in and you fill it up with compost as the potatoes grow. 🙂
Hi Pat
I’ve heard that people get great results from this method of growing spuds. Best of luck with your potential harvest.
Ha Ha – Virgoan, eh ! I understand where he’s coming from only toooooooo well !
Please keep sharing your tips from around the garden, as I too find them very helpful. Any tips for the kitchen/chicken poo compost bin ? – here in Glasgow, despite being in a sunny spot and watered at intervals, the process takes absolutely FOREVER, and I’m loathe to spend £££££s on compost accelerators………..(ancient cat’s urine-soaked sawdust litter doesn’t help as much as I’d hoped…..)
love reading your blog – Thank You so much.
Hello ChickPea
Chicken droppings can be added to your garden straightaway. They don’t need to rest for months. Other manure takes about a year to break down.
Great that you’re enjoying the blog.
we plant ours with a liberal dressing of lawn clippings, and wood ash from the fire. And this year, should it become necessary, we fully intend to use Bordeaux Mixture (which used to be legal under organice rules but now isn’t) to fend off the blight.
With the blight, last year our potato supply lasted us until Christmas. Without it, we may well have very nearly made it through. Particularly if I’d been bright enough to plant some in January in the polytunnel. Which I wasn’t!
I love your shopping list – potash and Scotch!
Good luck with the growing!
Here in Latvia we have to get our potatoes from the supermarkets as there aren’t any real seed potatoes, well not available to the public. It was quite a surprise last year to get one bed of a mixture of red and white potatoes and they must have come from the same bag as they were mixed up in the rows. Latvian potatoes are tasty though. I think we will be starting planting next week, once our son and new fiancé have gone home to England.
Good tip about the sulphate of potash. I’ve always used a bit of manure, probably not enough, and a bit of tomato feed now and then, but this year I want really hefty crops so I might switch to your method of doing things and see what the difference is.
Ahh, new home grown potatoes,there’s nothing like it.We just dug up and ate our tiny little crop.So good!
I know what you mean about soil.I live in on the coast in australia and the soil is basically sand.It has been an uphill battle trying to get good soil.My latest addition has been clay!We need help to get the water to stop running away.
It is inspirational to read about what you are up to.
I look forward to your fabulous harvest of potatoes in the future.