Controversial diet matters.

[tigerburnie]

I now grow predominantly in raised beds and at the end of each season, 2 get a bag of farmyard manure and the third gets compost(that's the one that gets the root crop in). Doing it every year seems to be giving me much better crops than in the past, there was a lot of soil improver from the council tip too, so I guess only 50 % soil in them.

[Ricard with an H]

Are you placing the farmyard manure under the potato seedlings ? I bought a few bags of farmyard manure two years ago as a trail, it was easy to mix into the soil and seemed to be blended with either peat or composted garden waste. Very nice and easy to work with but I got told off for messing the back of her new Golf. (Smile)

We have two cars, what a waste, one should be a van.

[oldherbaceous]

That's the good thing of planting or sowing anything at this time of the year Richard, they are through the soil in no time....so the potatoes i planted are up already. so very prone to late blight.
Some of the allotments are starting to get cleared of crops and then left empty for the season....i'm getting as much stuff in as i can for a second or third crop.

[Ricard with an H]

You can imagine the delights of living in between Goodwick and St Davids, I can see the sea but can't hear it. However, salty air brings problems to gardening and the wind can be merciless even from the south where it had a bit of land to go over before it got to me.
Spuds and carrots then OH, I already cleared a bed by 70%.

[oldherbaceous]

Sounds like you are making good progress, Richard....i did think of you last night Richard, as my toes, ankles, knees, hips and back, where giving me what for, where i had been over doing it...... never thought i would get to the stage where i would struggle doing 14 hours of work a day....

[robo]

Bloody bell OH I struggle doing 14 hours work a week

[Ricard with an H]

I used to do 14 hours a day and still coping at 70. The recent years have been a struggle though today I'm on rocket fuel at 75.

BORAGE TEA.

Borage tea. It takes a few days to kick-in for me but it works for me and the white witch that set me up to use it. Right now I'm hurting on everything below my ears but I don't care and two glasses of wine right now made it worse. Worse ?. I DONT CARE.

Planted my spuds and I have to give you people the usual huggy for encouraging me without reducing me.

[tigerburnie]

Are you placing the farmyard manure under the potato seedlings ?

Compost under the tatties this year, they are now taller than the wheelie bin, worrying there's all tops and nothing underneath, they flowering just now

[Monika]

Our potatoes in pots never flowered this year, but they have produced a very good crop. The soil in the pots was well-rotted FYM and bought potting compost, half and half. I also fed them with potato fertiliser occasionally.

The left over compost (and the pots) will be used for our winter flower pots with bulbs, wallflowers, primulas and violas.

[Ricard with an H]

The soil in the bed I had cleared for potatoes seemed lifeless so I dug in the easiest obtainable garden-centre farmyard manure. My previous potato crops were appreciated but not many spuds to each plant so I must be getting the nutrients wrong and wonder what is in " Potato fertiliser" that isn't in compost ?

Carrots going in tomorrow then weeding the last bed and wondering what to plant in it before it's too late.

MONIKA. Can you tell me the nutrient balance in your potato fertilser ?

[snooky]

http://www.allotment-garden.org/vegetab ... uirements/
Richard,
Have look at the article in the above link.

Potato Fertlizer recipe.
1/2 lb Sulphate of Ammonia.
1 lb Superphosphate.
1/2 ib Sulphate of Potash.

Apply to 30ft row at tme of planting.

[Geoff]

I tend to assume garden compost and manure contain very little nutrient and are mainly there for texture. I'm not as fussy as I should be about mixing them in, I just bury them a spade down and the black layer they create gets mixed in on the next dig, continuous improvement. I don't use raised beds but my polytunnel terraced beds are similar. They are 10'x4' and when I dig I remove a barrowload of soil (that I use for mixing potting composts) and add 2 to 2½ barrowloads of organic matter, they soon settle back to the level they started from. Potatoes are happy with organic matter plus Growmore at say 6ozs per sq yard but if you have individual nutrients in stock use a little less plus some superphosphate. If you don't want to use Growmore use FBB but remember you need a bit more.

[Ricard with an H]

Thanks for the recipe Snooky, I've bought bone meal online from ELIXIR garden supplies, I know they do super phosphate but isn't bone meal a high phosphate ?

Geoff, your view on garden compost surprises me and though I'm hardly qualified to disagree I have never used fertilizer until this year relying on composted material and the original cow muck that had been dug in everywhere. If you're right then that original mix of cow muck did all the good work.

Composted nettle, comfrey and borage are so strong by themselves they killed my strawberry patch one year. All I did was to mulch so those dried and rotted leaves must have contained a lot of something. I need to research this, I have an RHS book on organic gardening. Hopefully the answer will be in it.

Many gardeners for hundreds of years relied on composted garden and food waste to feed their crops, even now many gardeners will not use manufactured fertilizers so there has to be good nutrients in your composted material although it may be unbalanced.

[Ricard with an H]

I already found some information on composted materials.

NUTRIENT RICH COMPOSTED MATERIALS.
Cocoa shells.
Garden waste.
Spent mushroom compost.
Worm compost.
Lawn mowings.
Poultry manure.
Hay.
Vegetable waste.
Seaweed.

The list includes material that is low in nutrient or has non like straw, sawdust and woody pruning.

[Geoff]

Organic matter does build fertility and if you treat the soil well every year you can reduce other inputs but what I have said is a get you started system as this way you know you have balanced nutrients available. Reliable growing and the population explosion only took off with the introduction of the potato and importantly the use of guano.