potatoes

[simong]

HELP'

I have recently rotavated a section of grass, and now intend to plant potatoes on it. However the grass has begun to re grow,what is my best way forward? is it to dig, rake, or something else?. Sorry if this sounds silly.
Regards
Simong.

[Victoria26]

Ive been struggling with lifting turf in my garden. Unfortunatly I've ended up having to lift the turf top layer, dug down a spades depth - laid the tuf root side up at the bottom of the trench and filled in in with the existing soil.

Obviously this is too much to do on your scale but unfortunatly grass just wants to grow so you just gotta stick at it.

It'll be worth it in the end.

[JennieAtkinson]

You could try the no dig system. I have done this quite successfully on a number of areas of my plot.

Trim the grass/annual weeds, but dig out any perennial weeds.
Cover with cardboard
Cover the cardboard with manure (quite deep 6-8", or a foot if you've got enough)
Plant potatoes in the manure
Cover the manure with a mulch (I used grass cuttings)

At the end of the summer, I got a good crop of potatoes, the manure had "melted" into the soil, the cardboard was gone and the area was as good as if I had done a double digging, over and over.

I would certainly recommend it.

[rana]

One of the worst practices on my local allotments was to plough over plots when they were rented to new people. This meant the new grower was presented with a wonderful looking plot ready for planting. Unfortunately this usually meant that couch grass roots had been cut up and planted in a perfect growing medium. The unsuspecting gardener would plant potatoes etc only to be blighted with a horendous weeding problem for at least three seasons.

The cardboard idea is good if you've got access to plenty of manure, alternatively wait for the grass to sprout then nuke it with glyphosate (Roundup) herbicide.

[di]

We were caught out by the above...lottie ploughed.Not only did it chop up the couch grass,but also,from what I can make out,put the roots/shoots further down in the soil than would normally be.We took advice & planted spuds to supposedly help clear the problem....unfortunately almost every single spud had a grass root growing through it!
I now make sure any ground I plant spuds in is almost clear of couch grass...forking through several times.
Our new plot is covered in the stuff...plan is to dig it the best we can & then plant Squash & beans on it,hoping the squash will smother some of the grass & make next years job a little easier.
Depending on how big an area your talking,would it be possible to sieve the soil your putting spuds in...may help to get rid of some of the roots.