Growing Potatoes

[Alice Johnson]

Hi everyone. What are your top tips for growing potatoes? Do you grow them in containers or directly in the ground?

[Penellype]

Always containers (usually 30 litre pots) - I find they are much less likely to be attacked by slugs than when grown in the soil. They are also much easier to harvest as you can just turn the whole pot out onto a tarpaulin and pick the potatoes out. They come out cleaner than when grown in soil.

When planting I add about 4 inches of compost then put in 3 seed potatoes then fill the pot right to the top with compost. I then don't need to worry about earthing up, although with some maincrop varieties the odd tuber develops near the surface which needs covering later.

[Snoop Puss]

Hi, I grow my potatoes in a pretty straightforward way:
In the ground, well rotted muck in the bottom of a trench, potatoes in, then cover over. Add more muck each time I earth up and a bit of P and K once any flowers start forming.
Harvest first and second earlies as and when I want them, maincrops when the foliage has died back.

I have to say I'm very lucky as we've never had blight (so far).

[1Bee]

Pretty much like Snoop, except I have more comfrey than muck, so I throw some of that in either at planting or as a mulch later. I'll mulch with grass clippings, too, when I can. I'll only water if the weather is really dry.

My earlies go in earlier than anyone else on site, but mine's a sheltered plot and I fleece them.

We do get some blight, but we've never had a crop affected in the way people talk about, with an entire crop going down in a few days. I've even had a plant affected by blight have some blighted tubers and some tubers, from the same plant, that stored happily for months. So I've given up trying to understand blight...

[bikermike]

another ground-planter here.
Trench, bit of compost and in they go.
I rotate them around the plot (heavy clay)
Got hit by blight last year, but it was variety-specific - pentland javelin and king ed both nobbled, but pink fir were fine. Didn't lose any tubers, they just died off early.

There is nothing scientific about my approach, so I can't claim any great wisdom, but that's what I've done.
FWIW, the pink firs were a replant of previously bought seed (ie 2nd year of growing). I'll do them again this year and see how they do - if they lose vigour or get other diseases, I'll bin them.

[bramble]

I plant in the open ground and in containers.
Put seaweed, rotted leaves, chicken pellets and anything else available.
I always get a better crop from the potatoes planted in the open ground.

[rary]

Last year I planted potatoes both in the ground and in pots, but have decided to grow in pots only this year, and just plant early potatoes, I have a number of 10Lt. pots which I will use, planting one potato per pot into a 50/50 mix of soil and compost, with some shredded seaweed and six X added, and harvest as required.

[Bren In Pots]

I grow mine in old recycling boxes using a mix of leaf mould, my own compost and soil, 3 potatoes placed near bottom of box then filled to the top using same mix. I add Blood fish and bone after that I feed with comfrey.

[Greenleaves]

We don't eat enough potatoes to warrant growing them in open ground so this year will be a bit of an experiment.

Growing in containers with different media this year to see what is best, i shallbe growing Anya

[Potstubsdustbins]

I have been growing potatoes in pots for over twenty years now.

My first early sowing Lady C will go in black flower buckets in the green house mid February, one seed per pot and covered completely.

Toward the end of March weather dependant more Lady C will go into dustbins and second hand plastic water tanks, these will be set on 4" of compost and covered with about 6" of the same, to be topped up as the haulm grows. The six dustbins will be allowed about eighteen weeks like a second early to give some chippers and bakers.

Finally my main crop Picasso will go in again toward the end of March, six dustbins and 2 thirty five gallon water tanks, these will be in the ground a minimum of twenty two weeks.

All the compost has been recycled from previous years and refreshed with a base fertiliser and some pelleted potato fertiliser. This will see them through the first six weeks or so when I start to supplementary feed.

[geepee]

Mine..very similar to Potty in above post.

[Alice Johnson]

Thanks everyone. Some great tips here.

[Bex2012]

Im not bothering digging out trenches this year. Last year I used a bulb planter to scoop out the soil, put a handful of muck in the bottom of the hole, and then popped in the spud and covered over. It was so much easier.

[monkeyboy]

Always containers (usually 30 litre pots) - I find they are much less likely to be attacked by slugs than when grown in the soil.

I was thinking about using containers. Will anything do eg 30 litre buckets from local hardware store?

My first time growing so I thought containers better than bags. I've seen the JSA seed guy use slug pellets in the bottom but these were the plastic bag containers.

[Potstubsdustbins]

^^^^Any 30ltr pot will do the job providing it has drainage holes. Don't know whether you have a JTF discount store near you but they had them at a discount last week.

If you know a plumber ask if he has any used plastic water tanks he wants to get rid off, these start at 10gallon and run upward and there FREE!!!!

I personally would not put slug pellets in the bottom of the container but I would sprinkle them round the outside if I had an attack.