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How is the Potato planting going for you?
No expert
Posts: 415
in Fruit & veg
We are well into the potato planting season. How have you got on in the wettest March we have seen in nearly 10 years.
My first early Sharpes Express sowed 12th March, 11 under this cloche and 13 others outside. Need to do a bit of weeding!
British Queens chitted and ready for planting to-day.
Two furrows opened to take 72 seed.
36 Queen seed planted with a bit of peat to reduce Ph and avoid scab.
3 rows of potatoes planted here. Two Queens and one Home guard on the left planted on St Patricks day, March 17th.
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Every so impressed. I only started digging over the spud area last weekend, hoping to get some in this weekend.
Still not too lats for second earlies and plenty time for mancrop.
I usually grow mine in bags but wanted to plant them all on the allotment this year. How far apart should they be planted.
Put one seed at your heel and one at your toe as in pictuer 4
I put my earlies (Charlotte
) in a couple of weeks back: sandy soil so not too wet, and a mild area, so I have hopes they'll be fine. Pentland Javelin to go in at 'work' and Kestrel on the allotment next week.
When I was working on a NT garden a few years back I planted the spuds in the furrows and thinly covered them, intending to build up the ridges as they grew by earthing up from the temporary ridges either side. The Head Gardener said I should have planted them under the ridges. OK, sez I.
Who wuz right?
btw No expert (a misnomer by the look of it), those plantings look great. The weeds'll be removed by earthing up, surely?
My late dad showed me this method and it works for me. I'll earthup with the ridges left when needs be. Will also dig the furrows between the ridges at a later stage and earthup again. This black soil is very fine when dry and runs off the growing tubers exposing them to the sun.
So the spuds start off at the bottoms of the furrows and get earthed up using the soil from the ridges we see in the photos? And end up under newly-formed ridges, with furrows where the ridges are now?
I planted mine about 4 weeks ago. And, mercifully, here in Devon, we've had a relatively dry ( by Devon standards) March.
Steve 309, you've got it. That's correct.