Kitchen Garden Forum

Hi Tony,
So you do not earth-up. Now to me that is the place where the new growing potatoes are situated. Have you not realised how commercially they can lift then so easily. Your potatoes unearthed-up can then grow anywhere which could lead to massive damage when you go to lift them.
The ridges contain the potato and the one fault of the amateur grower is to not earth them up enough. This is generally as a result of having the rows too close together leaving not enough soli to earth -up properly.
Commercially main crop potatoes hereabouts are grow 15" down the row and 33"-36" down the row. The commercial width between the rows is more to do with mechanical handling but the amateur grower ideal for Main crop is 27" between the rows and 15" down the row and with Earlies 18" between rows and 12" down the row. The commercial yields are massive so they must be doing something correctly.
JB.

I'm quite sure most of the reason for growing potatoes on ridges is so that they can be mechanically harvested. I have little trouble getting them out with a garden fork - and do a lot less damage than the slugs usually !

I would guess commercial yields are so high mostly because they never want for water or nitrate fertiliser.

I grew Maris Bard,Arran Pilot and Rooster last and all varieties were attacked by slugs but the Maris Bard were the worst affected.Will have to buy a packet or two of slug nematodes this year.

If you want good yields then ridge, if you don't then don't.

Barney

Check out the recent article in kitchen garden re growing spuds three ways, the highest yield was under a mulch of straw, it keeps the soil moist and there was less slug damage too, they figured the slugs attack the spuds for the moisture when it was dry, more slugs under the straw but less damage to the spuds.

Would they be worth growing factoring the price of straw?

Barney

Johnboy, forgive me if I seem a dunce, but i have been very disappointed in my potato yields.
Are you saying that instead of covering my spuds with 4" and then re-covering when the shoots show through(twice), I can simply bury them 12" down and they will force their way through and give a good crop?
On a side issue, I intend to grow International Kidney for the first time and am intrigued by your earlier post.
Are you saying chit until a shoot appears, then remove it(how, rubbing or cutting out?), then re-chit until more shoots appear?
I thank you in advance for your forbearance.

Hi WHR,
Yes that is what I am saying because that is what commercial growers do and they get quite handsome returns.
With International Kidney Potatoes this disbudding came to light when "Countryfile" (I think it was) visited Jersey.
They chitted until one shoot appeared then this was removed and then anything up to 5 shoots appear. The seed spuds are graded by the amount of shoots they have.
I think the reason why people get disappointing returns from IK potatoes is because they did not have the right information about chitting. IK is obviously a potatoes that benefits from chitting.
I remember at the time of the programme only Geoff and myself latched onto it.
JB.

We have often planted potatoes in one go, deep straight from the planter with good results, the plant leaves will fight their way up. However this has never been done by design, just because we are badly organised and never found the time to do further earthing up. It also depends on the soil type, we caught a cold last year when planting in peat soil because the winds and rain together with tractor tyres when spraying had uncovered the tops of the ridges and many potatoes were green.

Having said that I try and plant 6" deep in light soil and a bit less in heavy and ridge up several times because it controls the weeds and the potatoes tend to form on top of the planted tuber.

Barney

Johnboy wrote:Hi WHR,
Yes that is what I am saying because that is what commercial growers do and they get quite handsome returns.
With International Kidney Potatoes this disbudding came to light when "Countryfile" (I think it was) visited Jersey.
They chitted until one shoot appeared then this was removed and then anything up to 5 shoots appear. The seed spuds are graded by the amount of shoots they have.
I think the reason why people get disappointing returns from IK potatoes is because they did not have the right information about chitting. IK is obviously a potatoes that benefits from chitting.
I remember at the time of the programme only Geoff and myself latched onto it.
JB.

Many thanks JB.

Hi Barney,
One of the reasons for planting deep hereabouts is to avoid the late frosts.
Potato fields are very deeply ploughed and the crop is planted deep and this helps the growers to actually plant a lot of potatoes over the allotted time span. If they had to wait for the weather then there wouldn't be sufficient time to get the planting completed.
Because of where we are there is no chance of irrigation, which to me is a blessing because the crop produced is well sufficient with rainfall as their only irrigation and the potatoes are of fine quality and store extremely well. I only grow Earlies (Maris Bard) myself now because there is an abundance of really good store potatoes around. The one good thing about MB is that they produce a superb early but if left to grow on they will produce a potato superior to Maris Piper. (this is in my opinion only)
JB.

Hello Johnboy

I can fully endorce your support for Maris Bard, I also favour them over all other early potatoes, both for flavour and their keeping qualities. Last year the crop was too late to sell so Ikept them for family use and they all have stored well.

As to why ridging is prefered, I believe it also helps support the haulm to stay upright which is important when travelling between the rows when spraying and there were some that thought the blight spores were more likely to wash down the ridge than settle on top risking being washed down to affect the tubers.

Barney

Hello
I'm also a big fan of MB. I always start few in a cold frame for a really early crop. A point in its favour which is rarely mentioned is that it has medium sized leaves on upright growths which make it ideal for growing in confined spaces like frames or cloches.

John

Evening all,

I have been following this thread with interest. I don’t have a lot of space for potatoes but like to grow a few and from your comments it would seem that Maris Bard would be a good variety for me to try as they seem to be pretty versatile. Unfortunately it is too late for this year as I have already bought my seed but will give them a go next time.

JB and Tony, how deep would you suggest that they should be planted given that we also suffer the late frost syndrome?

Also I notice that some of you favour Alan Roman as a supplier; they seem a bit more expensive than others eg JBA , is the quality any better in your experience?

Regards,

Diane

Dear Diane, i have bought from both suppliers, and they are much the same for quality, and that is good.
The only slight issue i had with one variety i had from Alan Roman was, the potatoes were on the small side, but that might have just been a bad year for that paticular variety.