Planting Spuds

This week I have been mainly planting potatoes…

                       

Last weekend at the allotment I noticed that the more experienced gardeners had started to plant their potatoes.  This prompted me into planting mine as well.  I had my seed potatoes delivered way before Christmas and have had them sat around since then waiting around, doing a bit of chitting here and there but basically slowly shrivelling.  I have had little success with potatoes on the plot so far.  I have tried different varieties none of which have performed as well as the classic King Edwards. These are in fact my favourite flavour so points all round.  I have put the poor results and small size of the potatoes down to the condition of the soil so this year I am only growing the one King Edward variety,  planting less and giving what I have more TLC.  Therefore over this last week I have done really well and pat myself on the back for this, and made the effort to ride my bike up to the allotment every night once I have got in from work and prepared and planted my potatoes.  Whether it works this time we shall see.

Step 1:     Instead of digging over the whole plot I just dug over the one trench sized area for each row of potatoes. (5 rows in all)

Step 2:       I sprinkled over some horse manure (well rotted) and left a day or so to get rained (drizzled) in a little.

Step 3:       I forked over the area of the trench to mix in the manure.

Step 4:       Using the fork I dug out a shallow trench.

Step 5:       I was planning to have 5 potatoes per row so with the spade I dug out 5 holes.

Step 6:       I sprinkled some compost into the bottom of the hole.

Step 7:       I placed a potato in each hole.

Step 8:       I stuck a stick in the ground to indicate where I had planted the potato.  This has always been one the problems I have in that I earth up the potatoes in the wrong place and they always seem to grow next the mound of soil instead of in it.

Step 9:       I sprinkled some more compost over the top of the potato.

Step 10:     At the start of the week the ground was very dry so I watered the potato to start it off but towards the end of the week as the drizzle soaked into the ground I didn’t have to.

Step 11:     I then raked the soil back into the hole and trench so it was level.

Step 12:     Once I had completed all 5 trenches and planted all my potatoes I then earthed them up using the rake.

This year I am going to just leave them alone, apart from watering and see what grows.