Sowing potatoes

[nic73bay]

This sounds interesting as my plot is just under half a plot so can't give over much space for potatoes but would really like to grow a few? How many potatoes would you put in each of the airpots?


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[Potstubsdustbins]

I am an old fashioned 80ltr black plastic dustbin person myself.

With main crop I use 4 0r 5 sets per bin and average 22lb of spuds per bin. I prefer to set in about 8 inches of compost and top up the bin as required as I find this encourages spuds right to the top of the bin. Not masses of them but every little helps as they say.

When the bins are harvest I replant with PSB or curly kale for winter greens.

1st pic bins in June, 2nd a solitary 80ltr bin in August 3rd same bin at harvest time with spuds just below the surface.

Potty

[bretty666]

Hi ..i have a question......maybe a silly question but what exactly is everyone earthing up? Do you just cover the base of the stems or what? Thats what i did last year and got terrible potatoes . ? Yet i got excellent sweetcorn? Im not sure i understad the science behind it?

[Penellype]

Potato tubers are not roots, they are swollen underground stems. They grow from the stem of the potato plant as it grows upwards from the seed potato. The idea of earthing up is that you are covering more of the length of the stem with soil, which encourages it to make more potatoes. You also need to keep any developing potatoes covered with soil because if they are exposed to light they turn green and become poisonous.

[Alison]

Hi ..i have a question......maybe a silly question but what exactly is everyone earthing up? Do you just cover the base of the stems or what? Thats what i did last year and got terrible potatoes . ? Yet i got excellent sweetcorn? Im not sure i understad the science behind it?

I don't really bother earthing up as I'm quite lazy. I plant deep and don't get many green ones, the two or three I do get just get discarded. When you say terrible, in what way, size, number, taste, disease? Not sure why you mention sweetcorn though as that's totally different and isn't earthed up as such although supporting the stem with soil ia a good plan.


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[bretty666]

I got on average two medium sized tatas per plant. i mentioned the sweetcorn as a "i got something to grow without knowledge"statement. so..iv not planted my tatas very deep. the bag said 5cms deep and my soil is shallow,probably one spade n half deep of good soil then its slate..if i need to earth up then do i jist make a mound around each stem? Thank you for your replies past and future

[Alison]

If your soil is not good then that is likely to be the problem but 5cm is very shallow.

[RaptorUK]

Soil at 8" deep should be good, I dug a trench about a month ago and filled it with compost from the compost heap then filled back in over the top with soil. Will check the temperature at various depths on Wednesday and report back

Sorry, I'm late getting the temperatures . . . temp at 4" was approx 10C and at 8" was approx 6C so I will go with a 4" sowing for my first row.

[dim]

got my new 500 litre compost airpot yesterday .... I am too late for potatoes, but may try growing sweet potatoes for the meantime (I will try with 4 grafted sweet potato plants in the container .... its nearly a meter in diameter)

the airpot is huge and has an additional gadget at the bottom (a tube that allows air to be fed in from the bottom of the container)

It will be interesting to see how this pot performs .... One of my clients also bought one of the large compost airpots and I will be growing Mooli radishes for him .... he has given me seed from India which I will place in my heated propogator and he claims that they grow half a meter long

[Bill HH]

I've actually gone the other way and planted mine more shallow this year with an intention of earthing up more..I found far too many potato's whilst winter digging even though when I was harvesting I was absolutely sure I had got pretty much all of them!

Maybe we need GM spuds that glow?

[Richard Eldritch]

" got my new 500 litre compost airpot yesterday .... I am too late for potatoes, but may try growing sweet potatoes for the meantime (I will try with 4 grafted sweet potato plants in the container .... its nearly a meter in diameter)

the airpot is huge and has an additional gadget at the bottom (a tube that allows air to be fed in from the bottom of the container)

It will be interesting to see how this pot performs .... One of my clients also bought one of the large compost airpots and I will be growing Mooli radishes for him .... he has given me seed from India which I will place in my heated propogator and he claims that they grow half a meter long

Last edited by dim; Today at 08:05 AM. "

Interested to hear how ya get on with it. I'd try some sweetcorn in it as they have big roots and love a large pot, I can see them liking an airpot.

[dim]

" got my new 500 litre compost airpot yesterday .... I am too late for potatoes, but may try growing sweet potatoes for the meantime (I will try with 4 grafted sweet potato plants in the container .... its nearly a meter in diameter)

the airpot is huge and has an additional gadget at the bottom (a tube that allows air to be fed in from the bottom of the container)

It will be interesting to see how this pot performs .... One of my clients also bought one of the large compost airpots and I will be growing Mooli radishes for him .... he has given me seed from India which I will place in my heated propogator and he claims that they grow half a meter long

Last edited by dim; Today at 08:05 AM. "

Interested to hear how ya get on with it. I'd try some sweetcorn in it as they have big roots and love a large pot, I can see them liking an airpot.

thanks Richard ... will update once I harvest

ps: good to see you on the forum .... not many people who frequent GLP and LOP grow veg

[Richard Eldritch]

thanks Richard ... will update once I harvest

ps: good to see you on the forum .... not many people who frequent GLP and LOP grow veg

Cheers Dim, There are a few Loppers that like to grow. As you can see, I try to be at my most restrained here. It's a great forum with some proper Veg Wizards.
By the way, you can get summer planting spuds for harvest around December if you wanted to test the airpot out.