Kitchen Garden Forum

Everything I read about growing potatoes suggests I'm wasting my time because of blight, you people grow spuds so blight can't be inevitable, can it ?

I'm wondering about growing a few spuds in an old plastic dustbin that lost its lid. I'll drill masses of holes in the bottom, use garden centre compost and slowely raise the compost level as the plant grows. So, how many seed potatoes in a dustbin and is it worth the expense of buying compost for a poor pensioner ?

Container compost alway has a second life Richard.

Between three and five seed potatoes I would say, watering properly will give a good yield.
Blight can be fought against, just as with tomatoes, you're probably ahead of the game where you are, breeziness works against stagnant humidity. Also not exactly a potato farming area of note is it? So you should have helow average spores floating in. If you are watering them and not relying on rain at all, you could cover them, that'll reduce the chances of infection. Adding preventative applications of copper based fungicidal products will further your chsnces.
Charlotte and Nicola are good choices for dodging blight as the haulms die off before the worst of the blight season arrives.

If you are watering them

Water the compost not the foliage.

Very interesting and thank you, I'm yet again vindicated asking what may appear simple question but non of those points were made in my two favored books. One of which is an RHS publication, the other by Diacono.

Potatoes are grown in Pembrokeshire though not in my area, between here and St David's we have an organic producer though it's more a small holding.

Most of our winds come off the sea, the windows and roof slates are testament to this by always being covered in sand and salt.

So, three tubers in a dustbin and they will be able to grow in one of the few sheltered places I have. A dustbin without a lid is useless though now that bin has some use. The lid is probably trapped in a hedge row miles away after a storm.

Never had any success with potatoes in containers.

I've tried planting single, treble and quadruple seeds in containers all to no avail.
I definitely didn't keep them moist enough. Where water is concerned spuds in containers have to be kept moister than those in the ground.

Don't expect too much in the way of a crop Richard, if you have any success I think you'll get more of a 'taster' than a crop.

Thanks Pa, I only just remembered that I did try the rubber tyre trick that so many talked-up. That failed.

The main reason I tried it was because when we bought this place tyres were everywhere and for me, a city boy, a bit of a mystery why anyone would choose to collect tyres.

The farmers round here used to cover their silage with tarpaulins then hold the tarps down with tyres, when we moved in the paddock looked lovely with long grasses and wildflowers. Guess what was hidden in the long grasses other than RSJ's, lumps of concrete, old engine parts and the remains of old steel gates ?

The 'Paddock' is almost a 'Pitch-and-put' these days, it was a lot of hard work and expensive to get rid of all that 'stuff.

When growing spuds in a dustbin you only need 20" of enriched soil. The bin should eventually be filled to the top and the space below 20" filled with a ballast of your choosing covered with polythene.
Put around 8" of soil and settle your spuds into the layer and then cover with 6" of soil and wait until the spud foliage has got to the top of the bin and carefully fill with soil to the top of the bin. (The equiv of earthing up.)
This method would be more suited to Early varieties and 6/7 spuds max and if growing Main Season Spuds regulate to 4/5 spuds max.
It Seems that over planting is one of the reasons for failure combined with insufficient nutrition and watering. With nutrition and watering little and often seems to work best. As the crop grows it is best to tie it all up to a cane placed down the centre of the bin. It may be advisable to put the cane in place at the time of planting.
This is the results of an experiment done a very long time ago at Uni.
Do remember that potatoes prefer a slightly acidic condition.
JB.

Thanks JB, that is a very detailed guide and it's fairly obvious you had success with the method. However, the dustbin has now been co-opted as a rhubarb forcer and to be perfectly honest seems better than my posh clay traditional forcers.

I have three short rows sown in my deepest and best bed. Two rows of PFA and a row of Charlotte.

I have some beds that have been heavily treated with cow muck last autumn but the worms haven't mixed it in as well as I expected so I have lots of claggy lumps to break up and mix in. I could do with a small rotavator for the job though that seems a bit over the top for a raised bed.

I wonder.

Has anyone ever used a cement-mixer to mix the contents of their raised beds. It seems a good idea if you have a mixer that already payed its way on other work.

(Nervous grin)

I've not used one but I'm pretty sure I've seen it done on TV. Should work if everything is dry and friable, depends on the state of your manure really.

Hi RwaH,
I appreciate that this is a rather late posting but I have found that the spreading of Manure on designated beds is best done using the following method.
Early Autumn.
Spread as liberally as possible and allow the bed to become thoroughly wet and then cover with heavy duty Polythene. If the bed becomes dry uncover it and allow to become thoroughly wet again and re-cover.
Early Spring.
Uncover the bed a lay open to the elements and I have found that by then the worms will have done their job and simply rake off what has been left. Generally I find that what is left only straw.
All that is needed is a very shallow forking over and raking to a fine tilth and you are in business. Hope this helps.
JB.

I thought about buying an old petrol cement mixer then drilling the drum with loads of 12mm holes to make a large riddle, as at one time i was of a mind to riddle all the soil on our plot as its full of broken glass and all manner of things in the end i built 10 raised beds, the area i have left is less than a spade deep before i hit clay that area is easier to clean all the bits of bikes ,glass, asbestos, and bricks out of which over the last 3 years i have reduced and now am building the depth of soil up by using anything that appears outside the allotment fence where our council dump all the debris they collect from the parks and cemetery

Robo, it's taken me three years to get the soil in my raised beds just about right though there is still some riddling to do each year. I'm going to add a photo of my pile of stones just to let you and others know how bad it's been.

JB, regarding the manuring, I was warned about my early manuring practice by several forum-ers and-so I started doing just as you advise. Some clumps of dried cow-poo and clumps of very sticky poo couldn't be managed by the worms though mostly they did the business.

Other than that I do use a little sprinkle of chicken pellets here-and-there and I regularly feed with comfrey that is rotted down in water in a huge plastic drum and an old dustbin, it stinks to high-heaven and it works a treat. My comfrey and borage are almost big enough for the first harvest, it gets chopped and shoved into onion nets then immersed. Takes about two weeks to rot down.

I did mean to ask what nutrient is favoured by potatoes though I'm sure comfrey will be fine and I'm told tomatoes love it.