Early to rise: Ratte potatoes
Ratte potatoes aren’t strictly first earlies. OK, so they’re not even earlies – by the book.
But if you bung ‘em in with your first earlies they make a decent size by mid July, and that’s when I most like them. They make the most utterly delicious salad potatoes.
By the way, dear reader: do you earth up all in one go at planting time… or earth up bit by bit as the haulms grow? I have a lively debate with other gardeners about this, because I’m convinced you get bigger plants and more potatoes by earthing up gradually.
Anyone gonna persuade me I’m wrong!?
I’m going for the ‘earth em up as you go’ method. I feel that the ‘all in one go’ kind of limits them from the start…I’ll let you know when I compare them to my neighbours ‘bung em in and leave em’ results. But with earlies I’ve had really good results with earthing up so I don’t really see why maincrop should be any different…ok so my neighbours might have 25 years more experience than me but I’ve never been shy of flouting convention
April 24th, 2009 at 7:11 pm
As I go, or not at all. Swift probably won’t get earthed up. However, I’ve managed to damage the haulms badly several times by earthing up gradually, but the soil in that bed is very lumpy and stony.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:21 pm
for me i dig a trench a spade deep and plant spuds in the bottom, then i earth up straight away.then i earth up again in 6 weeks.i do this because i work 12 hr night shifts and if a frost comes theres not really alot i can do about it.it also protects the seeds from the cold as i like to get them in as early as poss to give max growing time b4 blight strikes.
worked ok so far but only my 3rd year of growing
April 24th, 2009 at 8:21 pm
Trench, wait for sign of life, watch em get to 6″ tall, earth up so you cant see them, water water water, wait again until 6″ tall, add slug pellets and earth up again and just water whenever every time you have the opportunity.
Thanks for your advise on caulis last time, I wrote about them in my last post.
Still no heads but I have the bagpipe music ready just in case.
Rgds,
Cazaux
April 24th, 2009 at 9:37 pm
That’s interesting… I’ve never felt the need to add slug pellets to my spuds. Sure, they get a few slug holes here and there (or at least, the maincrops do), but never enough to seriously damage the crop. Am I just incredibly luck with my soil?
April 25th, 2009 at 6:36 am
In one go or not at all – my soil’s so heavy and sticky (not well worked yet) that it’s concrete often at planting time, so I do what I can do. It’s certainly concrete afterwards, so there’s absolutely no chance of earthing up gradually.
I’m also trying the bag method for the first time this year and I will be adding compost to those as I go. It’ll be interesting to see the results later.
April 25th, 2009 at 9:19 am
i earth up gradually… although this is my first year so lets see what kind of results i get.
April 25th, 2009 at 10:23 am
I always earth up as they grow. I never completely cover the tops because they need some daylight on the top leaves to keep growing. If you keep burying them in the dark the plant is put under too much strain to keep growing up without getting any energy from the sunlight. I earth them up to within about 2″ of the top and then wait for them to grow another few inches then earth them up again.
April 28th, 2009 at 7:39 am