Earthing up potatoes

Out early this morning to earth up potatoes. Not as big a job as I'd thought it would be.

Some were earthed up just using the soil around them, and some using a mixture of soil and pig manure. We'll see if there's any difference in the crop.

I also planted out the three courgettes which had grown too big for their pots. There's space in the bed for another three, and I have some more planted in pots indoors, but they haven't shown yet.

I did a few other small jobs - a bit more scything and hand-weeding, and putting in canes to support a couple of  broad beans which were beginning to tip over. While I was pottering about, I noticed that the blackcurrant bush now has a dozen or so tiny green currants. Funny, I didn't see any flowers at any point. The apple tree didn't produce any flowers either - I think they should have been out in late April or early May, so perhaps I pruned the tree too hard.

Potatoes in

Chitted potatoes ready for planting

It's traditional to plant potatoes out on Good Friday, but I left it a bit later because the weather was cool that week, and because I wanted to put up the mesh cage over bed three without having to worry about trampling the potatoes.

Now they're all in the ground, the earlies in bed two and the maincrop in bed four. In the end there were 23 of each type to go in, 18 of each in the main beds, and five of each in the overflow bed.

I also planted out some spinach from paper pots (in bed zero), a row of chives in bed eight, and eight dwarf French beans in large pots. There's enough space in the overflow bed for four dwarf beans, and enough space in bed one (where some broad beans didn't make it through the winter) for another four. The chives and the French beans were impulse buys when I was getting the chicken wire.

If the chives and the early potatoes are ready at the same time, I can have potato salad. Mmmm!

Overflow potato bed

Potato bed

Doing some calculations on the back of an envelope, I found that there wasn't enough room in the two beds earmarked for potatoes for all the seed potatoes I've got chitting on the windowsill. The early potato plants need to be about a foot apart each row, and the rows need to be about two feet apart, the maincrop potatoes want slightly more space than that.

To take the excess, I've dug a new long bed. It's a bit wider than I need, and I will plant the potatoes on the north edge, and use the other half for short, fast-growing things - possibly radishes, or maybe more lettuces.

That is almost all the digging I plan to do this year, the only thing left is a small bed (about four feet square) for a runner bean wigwam. I'll probably put that in the space between beds four and five. The beans won't be going in until late May, but I ought to dig it soon and mix in some organic matter.

Beds two and four ready for spuds

Ready for spuds

I was feeling the after effects of digging yesterday, and I was going to take the day off, but the weather was so good (and promises to turn colder and rainy soon) that I went out and dug bed four. 

Both two and four now have the green manure (forage rye) dug in, along with a few handfuls of slow-release fertiliser pellets. You're supposed to dig compost in a month or two before planting potatoes, but mine isn't ready yet. I picked out stones as I went, and the soil now appears to be good tilth, with some organic matter, which should be ideal. Fingers crossed.

Potatoes are traditionally planted on Good Friday, which is April 6th this year, but mine might go in earlier if it is warm.  They are chitting nicely, and apparently you only need to wait for the soil to warm up.

Green manure

Green manure, cut and ready to dig in

The potatoes currently chitting on the windowsill are going to go into beds two and four, where I was experimenting with green manure. The forage rye I grew there got to about 6" high, growing quite thickly over the area. It needs to be dug in about 4-6 weeks before the following crop, so today I cut it down with shears. I'll let it wilt for a few days, then dig the beds over.

I don't think it was worth it in terms of time and money - the soil appears to be in good condition and green manure is really a treatment for heavy clay soils or nutrient-poor soils, so I think I just made a couple of extra tasks for myself. Next year I doubt I'll bother with green manure.

Tuber Mirum

Watching... waiting...

No sooner had I finished the paper pots and had a cup of tea, there was a knock on the door and my seed potatoes had arrived. (They were brought by a courier man in a van, obviously, they didn't make their own way here.)

 Checking on the excellent Grow Your Own forum, it seems that many gardeners have already started chitting their potatoes. Apparently, at the very least this prevents mould and weak, white, spindly shoots, and may also increase yield and shorten the time until the spuds are ready to lift. So I put them out in egg-boxes on a cool, well-lit, airy window sill. The sheet of advice that came with the potatoes said to place them 'blunt end' up, but I'd read somewhere that you place them with the majority of eyes uppermost. This was easier than trying to decide which was the blunt end. I think the potatoes have already decided which way they want to grow - one end usually has many spiky little eyes, and the other end usually has one, which looks different. I expect that one is the bud of the tap-root.

There are two varieties of potatoes here, Epicure, which is a first early (ready as soon as June, possibly), and King Edward, which is a maincrop, cropping from August. I got a 1.5 Kg bag of each variety, and that came to 23 Epicure and 24 King Edward.