Chitting Potatoes

[Johnboy]

Hi Diane,
As a rule my potatoes are planted at 9" deep and earthed up in the same operation. Commercially here they plough 14" deep and condition the ground prior to planting and it is difficult to determine how deep they plant but the earth mound is 12" and the mounds 33" to 36" apart.
I plant Maris Bard 9" deep and mound up about the same and they are planted 18" between mounds and about 12" down the row.
With Main Crop I would plant at the same depth but 27" between mounds and 15" down the row. The mound really depends on how much distance you put between rows. If you plant with rows too close there is normally insufficient soil to earth-up sufficiently and certainly in the case of main crop.
I hope this makes sense to you.
JB.

[Tony Hague]

To plant mine I dig a trench one spit deep, fork in a bit of whatever manure/compost I have to hand, the set the potatoes on top of it. They probably end up about 8" deep. I put 2 rows in a 4' wide bed (not raised ...), so they are probably about 24" between the rows. Not a lot different to Johnboy's numbers in fact.

I would not worry about what is done in commercial practice, much is to do with harvesting. The ridges are often formed from de-stoned soil, and are needed for harvesting - the machine lifts the whole ridge and sifts out the potatoes.

[DiG]

Thanks for your replies - most helpful. It is clear, from what you have all said, that I have been planting my seed much too shallowly which would explain why the yields have not been great and I did get quite a few exposed green ones as well. I was trying to get three varieties in a relatively small raised bed (3.6m x 1.8m) which meant that they were probably planted too close together to earth them up effectively.

The beds were only dug two years ago in what was part of a field. The soil was pretty poor and in parts heavy clay and we have been adding as much as we can to try and improve it. I sowed green manure on these beds last autumn which will be dug in before planting and yet more garden compost added. I foolishly thought that two 1 metre cube compost bins would be enough to both take all the waste from the plot and also be enough to service the seven veg beds . We are now up to one per veg bed plus a leaf mould cage!

Thanks again for your advice.

Regards, Diane.

[Johnboy]

Hi Tony,
Almost identical to me as makes no difference. My potatoes are planted in Comfrey compost. The difference comes with the earthing up. I maintain that this is essential to know where your crop is growing and therefore prevent damage when lifting. If you do not earth up you do not know where you crop is and to me that is not a good thing.
With my spacings you could get two rows of earlies but not main crop in a 48" bed unless you plant in small rows across the bed which to me would be an absolute pain.
However you seem to be satisfied with your results which in the end is what counts.
By the way certainly earthing-up commercially came long before
de-stoning machines were invented but that accounts for the wide spacings. Direct earthing-up was practiced hereabouts before WW2 to my knowledge.
Sincerely,
JB.

[Tony Hague]

However you seem to be satisfied with your results which in the end is what counts.

I wouldn't say completely satisfied ... but my biggest problem is slug damage, which has quite an impact on yeild. I have a heavy and often rather soggy clay allotment.

[WestHamRon]

My IK's are chitting nicely. Strangely only one of the twenty had a single sprout. All the others have multilple sprouts.