alternate early/maincrop rows to save space?

[grubby]

Hello - I've just doubled my plot size by cultivating a spare bit of land and to get things going and help clear it I'm going for a bumper potato crop this year.

I got a bit carried away buying seed potatoes, various early and maincrop. I can fit them in with normal spacings (I usually go for 2ft between rows for earlies, 2.5ft for maincrop) but then I though about alternating rows of earlies and maincrop and spacing everything at 2ft.

my thinking was that the earlies (some are very early, Rocket) would be lifted and out before the maincrops needed all the space. The maincrop would then get to mature with 4ft between the rows.

This would save me enough space to squeeze in something else.

Does anyone else do this? Are there any disadvantages with this approach?

[Two_Sheds]

Where are you? You might get blight before your mains are ready

You don't need 2ft between rows do you? Just park them closer together - 18" apart all round is OK

you don't want to be digging in between your spuds if you can help it because you'll end up digging the wrong ones

[grubby]

In suffolk. I've only had blight badly once, and even then it wasn't too a great hit on yield, I try to include a proprtion of "good for storage" 2nd early varieties and make sure maincrops are at least better than average for resistance.

I used to space rows closer but found it made mounding up difficult, so now I do them at about 2ft or so.

I don't think I'll dig the wrong ones up, it's a pretty large bed which will probably end up with a single long row per variety so as long as I remember to label them should be OK!

I did think that one downside would be I wouldn't be so easily able to stick a catch crop into the space the earlies were in, it would be in a long row between the maincrop spud rows rather than having a space on its own, but I don't think I'll be following on with anything on this plot til next season.

[Pies]

plant your earlies then your lates.You can plant leeks where your earlies were.Alternating wont save space but will make digging out harder

[King Carrot]

plant your earlies then your lates.You can plant leeks where your earlies were.Alternating wont save space but will make digging out harder

or kale or cabbages or lettuces or peas or beans and so on - why make it over complicated and risk disturbing your maincrop

[grubby]

d'oh yes leeks. forgot about them! yes, they could definately go in. I was planning 2.5ft between maincrop rows and 2ft between earlies so planting everything with 2ft spacing then removing the earlies to give the mains more room would definately save space. But I appreciate digging out the earlies would be harder, always working in the middle of the jungle.

Actually I think that's swung in for me in favour of not bothering. And when digging out the mains the leeks would be in the way then right through to early spring I'd have odd rows of leeks with huge gaps making it difficult to efficiently cultivate for the next year.

Hmm, yeah maybe not then. Perhaps I'll split things up a bit and do one set of rows like this as an experiment.

[grubby]

or kale or cabbages or lettuces or peas or beans and so on - why make it over complicated and risk disturbing your maincrop

for the sole reason of squeezing a bit more in but yeah I'm just being greedy

Think you've all convinced me. There's only so much we can eat!

[wellie]

That's why I love this forum, because you can bounce your brilliant ideas here, and get proper, genuine answers as to why they would (or wouldn't) work.X

[Hazel at the Hill]

Just a thought about potato spacings - I wouldn't be tempted to cram them in too close as what you gain in extra yield with more spuds per square foot underground, you lose as you sprong your fork through the tubers.

Spuds are the one thing that I think do well in proper rows rather than a grid (so planted - say - 18" between maincrop potatoes in rows 3' apart as opposed to 2' between each potato, if you see what I mean). That wider gap gives you room to put your fork in at harvest time 18" from each haulm and ease up the crop without damage, and move along the row.

If the spuds are only planted 2' apart each way, stabbing your fork in just one foot from a potato plant when you expect half a dozen or so bakers underground is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel - all too easy to hit one!

[Two_Sheds]

In suffolk.

If you put that into your profile, we won't keep asking you

I used to space rows closer but found it made mounding up difficult

I don't mound (earth up) at all, I mulch with grass clippings begged off my neighbours

plant your earlies then your lates.

Now see, Bob Flowerdew says plant your lates first, because they need a longer season

cram them in too close ...you sprong your fork through the tubers.

That's what I was trying to say when I said he'd dig up the wrong ones

[Pies]

I meant plant rows of earlies then rows of maincrop which gets planted first doesnt matter for the question asked

[Kristen]

I mulch with grass clippings begged off my neighbours

I know you'll know this T.S., but do make sure they haven't used selective weed killer on the lawn - particularly Verdone Extra (which has stuff in it similar to Aminopyralid)

[Two_Sheds]

do make sure they haven't used selective weed killer on the lawn

I do
My mistake in 2007 was to accept a couple of sacks of bowling green clippings: they must have had seeds in because by the end of that summer I had a ruddy lawn on my onion patch - in fact I'm still weeding it out now

[Alison]

I plant my earlies 12" apart both ways and get a great crop, as with others on here I don't really earth up much and to be honest haven't found a drop off in yield since I stopped doing it. Don't put clippings or anything down either. Tend to dig all my earlies up with a hand fork, just removing what I need for the next couple of meals as they're much nicer fresh. Main crop (don't really grow second earlies, never found a good one worth growing and find my earlies take me through to main crop) are planted a bit further apart but still less than 2', usually plant a grid of 6 rows of 3 in a 10' by 4' bed and have no problems digging up but then again often do a lot of this by hand too rather than getting fed up spiking a lot of them with a border fork