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Friday, 22 April 2011

First 50 spuds bagged

After the Hairy Bikers went I got down to the business of bagging my spuds. I intend to grow 100 bags shared between 8 varieties. First I dug a shallow trench the width of a shovel and sprinkled some fish blood and bone in to the bottom

Then to the mix:- I am using 17litre Polly pots and the growing medium is yes you guessed it, Wickes Compost which is Peat with no glass or lumps of wood or other rubbish, it is getting harder to find good compost at a good price.I put all the compost through the garden shredder then to every 12 gallons (4 builders buckets) I add 6 oz of Tev 4 and 4oz of Seaweed Meal this is then mixed up well in my cement mixer with a few slug pellets
I am using seaweed meal instead of Calcified seaweed as it is already fine powder and does not need to be ground, one job less to do.
I then filled the pots about half full with the mix and place one Chitted Potato in the centre ensuring it is deep enough to be completely covered. Some Varieties that naturally produce smaller Tubers need to have some of the shoots removed before planting to help them to produce larger tubers. I leave no more than 3 shoots on varieties such as Blue Belle.To remove the unwanted shoots you need to dig them out of the seed Potato,if you just rub them off the base will still be there and it will produce another shoot after planting.By the end of the day I had 4 rows planted Winston Celine Sherine and Blue Belle I will try to do the rest on Saturday.




4 comments:

  1. Looking good
    Wish I had viewed this before doing mine

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  2. Done mine today too,just 20 bags though.
    Good job you didn't use Calcified Seaweed.
    Calcified = Lime = more Scab !
    How hot's 'yer polytunnel getting ? I hit 40c today int' bloody shade...not good.

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  3. Dan Polytunnel is ok, i have a fan rigged up to cool it down a bit and it seems to be working so far. Largest Onion has broken in to double figures it is now over 10" round
    Blicky yours seem fine to me what would you have done different?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Didn't realise you need to dig the chits out, good tip, as long as I remember it next year!

    ReplyDelete