Kitchen Garden Forum

I had a gander at my early potatoes (Maris Bard) today, that were recently showing their leaves and since I had not bothered to earth up the recent frosts had just caught some of their leaf edges. I wonder if other forum members were affected or like all good gardeners I suspect that you all covered your potatoes after hearing the frost warnings.

In the distance I spotted the 'big boys' with their even bigger toys planting Estima in the fields below. What a superb tilth these powerful machines produce with all the stones and clods seperated.







Barney

Dear Baney, i have got some potatoes up about six inches, they are under polythene cloches, but the frost did catch them last week. But i'm sure they will get over it.

Some lovely photos Barney.

Do you know what that Mocap is used for.

Hi Oldherbaceous

I think the Mocap is a nematode used for slug control.

I hope that your potatoes will soon catch up again.

Barney

Hi Barney,
Very interesting photographs and they show a difference in the method of destoning to this area.
This years crop are due to be planted and the fields have been ploughed this week and the 'team' will be in this or next week.
The destoning here is done after the rows are formed and they deposit the stones every 4th row and the destoner takes the soil of the rows and removes the stones and leaves 4 rows again ready for planting up. Up until now I have never seen Mocap used but will keep an eye out to see if it is used here. We get plenty of keeled slugs but very few wire worm but they generally only affect the the immediate margins so protecting an entire crop might be a waste of money and an unnecessary use of a chemical. Who knows.
I am interested at your planting distances for Maris Bard. I would be planting 12" down the row and 27" twixt rows but yours seem to be considerably closer.
By the way the fields here were ploughed at 12" to 14" were soil depth allowed which is considerably deeper than any gardener would manage.
We get very late frost here and the plantings are deeper so that emergence occurs just after the anticipated last frost. They have been known to slip up but not very often.
JB.

Hello Johnboy
My oldest son started planting and set the rows 24" apart, I finished the planting at 12" spacings. However I might just check his spacings since he always tends to want to plant closer than I do!

His reasoning is that the buyers prefer smaller new potatoes so he thinks he will get smaller and more by planting closer. I'm of the old school, 12" for early and 15" for main.

Very interesting reading your comments on modern potato planting, the field that I photographed was only using two men on the field and a third to haul and load the tubers. I can remember when it seemed like half the village turned out to plant and pick potatoes.

The field had also been deep ploughed and the tilth was superb.

Barney

Hello Alan

Thank you for the interesting link about Mocap.

Barney

It's interesting to hear comments from people from the farming side of things.

When I was a child the October half term was always Tatie Picking and we got 7/6d a day and it was very hard work.

We also get late frosts here and I plant my tubers deep. I do have to keep an eye on them though and have fleece handy in case we get a keen frost. None of mine have appeared yet though I think the cold is holding everything back. In fact this week is more like the start of a new Ice Age than Global Warming.

We haven't planted any of our potatoes yet, but hope to start with Kestrel and Ulster Sceptre this coming week (when there is at least a hope of some decent weather!). As we often get late frosts up to 10 June, it's not worth risking earlier planting, they always catch up.
We already have some earlies planted in the greenhouse (one large bag with Rocket, two large bags with Kestrel, two with Ulster Sceptre and two with Anya), they will go outside any day now with fleece at the ready for any frosty nights.
Last year's stock of late ones (Sarpo Mira and Lady Balfour) are still fine for eating and, if all goes well, we should be able to start on the new ones just when last year's crop runs out altogether.

Hello Monika

We have yet to plant our main crop and after many years of growing Desiree we have decided to grow Lady Balfour this year. I have previously grown some in the past and hope that they turn out as well as I remember them.

Barney

my earlies were under fleece, held tight against the prevailing south-west wind. The easterlies caught the edge of the fleece and turned it over, so the shoots at that side of the raised bed were affected, but not badly. The ones under straw look much sturdier and are unaffected.

mike