Kitchen Garden Forum

This debate sounds so much like a situation that regularly occurs in my industry....you may get away with some things for so long and then Wham! problems hit big time... in my industry that can mean a high financial cost to the rule bender

I am with Johnboy on this one

I am so confused about the whole spud thing now, I would never & have never put new spuds where old spuds have been, but to find new ground can be hard, when should/can I use the same bit of ground again, after one year or would some say more!!! How about it Johnboy

SB

Why don't you grow them in a big tub, you can take it inside, or make a cover for it when the weather turns frosty, and you won't have to worry about the soil if you use fresh compost. They'll be nice and clean and easy to pick at Christmas, even if the weather is bad.

I grew some potatoes that I wanted to keep an eye on in the large tubs that trees come in and got a lovely crop.

My local garden centre sells these tubs for £2.99 and they are ideal, a good size and with handles and good drainage too.

I would never grow spuds in the same ground as last year. In fact, I am able to apply a 5-year rotation for them.

But there is one thing which defies the logic. That is the phenomenon of "keepers" or "volunteers". These seem to come up and give a good, pest=free crop; indeed, on one bit of my allotment I have dug up some supersize Ambo keepers for the past three years! I don't know why I should be so lucky with these.

I've had a nice early crop of Pink Fir Apple in the same way.

mike

Hi Mike,
I no longer grow main crop potatoes but when I did volunteers were always hoed out. The reason for this is that they actually make a nonsense of strict rotations.
I feel that people are trying to get too much out of a plot and this is one of the reasons that diseases seem to prevail whereas years ago, when there was even more home growing than there is now, these diseases were in fact quite rare.
The blight incident is now running at an unprecedented high and I have a sneaking suspicion that it is because everything is crammed into a plot not intended to grow so much.
I wonder how many people cram potatoes together in order to get the maximum crop which creates a wonderful breeding condition for blight.
Commercially this year the potatoes are grown at 33" per row but last year, and many years previously, were grown at 36". Now on an allotment that will not make that much difference but over an area of say 80 acres it can increase the yield quite appreciably.
Imagine an extra row of spuds 700' long in every 11 rows adds up to an awful lot of spuds.
This year the potato crop here has been sprayed 6 times and the haulm is to be removed sometime this coming week. Thankfully there has been no sign of blight this year and the haulm is now beginning to die back naturally. There is blight in the district and many gardeners bemoaning the fact that they will again have no crop. I regret to say that these are mainly organic gardeners who refuse to spray.
JB.