Feeding potatoes?

[moggssue]

Hi all. I havent bothered feeding my potatoes in containers (well, mostly in inside out empty compost bags!) since I've been earthing them up and presumed they'd get plenty of feed with the new compost. However, now two of them have started flowering and I've just read in a mag that they are 'greedy feeders' - so should I be feeding them now? If I do, won't they be overwatered with all this rain AND me adding more with the food?

[Snadger]

I suppose, if you were worried about over watering you could use a high potash granular/powder feed! Or cover the surface with decomposed comfey leaves!

[Alice]

Hello Moggssue, I mix some manure (6x from B&Q) with the compost in the bottom of the bucket. Last year I fed the potatoes with Phostrogen. Tis year I haven't . I had much better crops last year so maybe the Phostrogen helps. Also I find I still need to water the potatoes even if it has rained, as the top growth gets quite big and the rain doesn't get into the buckets. Some of my buckets have been quite dry at the bottom when I emptied them. So not sure whether the extra water or the phostrogen produced the bigger crops last year.
You could run a wee trial of your own - feed and water half - and let us know how you get on.

[sewer rat]

Potatoes are greedy feeders but not overly so. I planted all my tatties out with some chicken manure pellets and that's all they have had. They were all fully earthed up at planting as I couldn't give them the time to earth up a bit at a time. I had a root around my first early Lady Christl today and it's looking good. Also had a look at one of my second earlies, Edzell Blue, and it too is looking good.
Commercial growers up here feed just the once when a nitrogen liquid fertiliser is injected into the drills about two to four weeks after planting.
On the watering subject, when the tubers are swelling, it's hard to give them too much water. Any surplus should drain out the bottom of your containers. As long as your plants stay blight free, this should be a good year for bumper early potato crops, as all this rain has come at just about the right time.

[Snadger]

Commercial growers up here feed just the once when a nitrogen liquid fertiliser is injected into the drills about two to four weeks after planting.

By 'injected' do you actually mean injected SW???
The chap on the lottie close by uses a knapsack sprayer with a hand held lance. The tip is pushed into the soil and he gives a quick blast which comes out of holes in the side of the tip, beneath the soil. Is this the same thing???

[sewer rat]

Same principle I suppose Snadger only this tractor mounted machine does two drills at at time, and injects from each side of the ridge at a fantastically high forward speed of 2mph.

[Cutecumber]

I don't think you can give potatoes in containers enough water. Seriously, even if you see it draining out it has probably run down the edges inside. Keep soaking them well. I have never harvested and found the compost to be wet, myself.

I feed mine too. Comfrey and balanced liquid feed.

[moggssue]

Thanks all - I shall give half of them a good feed tonight then, and leave the other half to their own devices. I won't be earthing up any more so the unfed half won't be getting anything further from me. Results in about six weeks (hopefully!) ...

[Snadger]

Same principle I suppose Snadger only this tractor mounted machine does two drills at at time, and injects from each side of the ridge at a fantastically high forward speed of 2mph.

Works the same speed as I do then!