Potato Planting, Mowing & Cleaning

Easter Friday was a beautiful day and the Saturday pretty nice so getting on with jobs outside.  Of course by today (Sunday) it’s going downhill fast. The sky is grey and the wind is gusting up to 40mph. Tomorrow the rain arrives, most likely.

Potato bed tilled and ready to start the potato planting process.

Made a start on the potato planting by getting the Casablanca first earlies into the new raised bed by the polytunnel. I’d a little room left in the bed so planted some Salad Blue to fill the bed.

The Salad Blue have come as quite large seed potatoes so cut some in half being careful to have sprouts on both sides. One had mould growing so I thought best to cut the mouldy part off when I discovered it actually has hollow heart. Might get away with it, but it’s 50:50 at best.

One of the benefits of buying my seed potatoes from the local nursery is that they let you pick your own from a bin full of tubers. First come get the perfect sized seed-potatoes.

Traditional Potato Planting

Ran over the area in front of the brassica tunnel with the Mantis. Lovely fine tilth and any seedling weeds chopped up too. Then drew furrows using the Wolf Garten ridger tool. It neatly pushes the soil up to the sides so well and easily.

Next I put a good layer of lawn clippings in the base of the furrows before dropping the tubers on at 15” (45cm) spacings. Finally raked the soil over forming ridges and jobs a good ‘un.

Soil nicely ridged up over the potatoes in their grass clipping bed.

That was all the Axona, Orla and some Kifli planted. Whilst Orla isn’t as blight resistant as the Sarpo Axona and Kifli varieties, it forms tubers quite early. If blight strikes, just cut off the foliage and remove. Leave a couple of weeks and harvest.

Left to plant

I’ve more Kifli, a few Salad Blue and some Estima left to plant along with Sarpo Mira. The Mira, being a thug, will go in by the wall in the veg garden. Because of space running out, the rest will go into raised beds in the field plot.

I did say I was mothballing the field raised beds and just going to grow in the walled veg garden. When have I ever stuck to a plan?

Grass Clippings

Planting on top of the first mowings is actually a very traditional way to do it. You know it’s time to start potato planting when the grass is growing for a start. I don’t think the grass clippings make a huge difference but it does help a bit. Once the grass rots down, it’s improving the soil as well.

The improvement in soil quality where I mulched under fruit bushes with grass clippings to keep down the weeds was a surprise to me. Far better than I thought. Grass clippings are a very under used resource.

Bay tree pruned to a ball, bed below prepped and planted.

Bay Tree

Our bay tree was getting out of control so last year I pruned it  into a ball. Beware, given time and opportunity a bay tree becomes enormous. It no longer shades the bed underneath so I added some slow release fertiliser, some Cultiv-8 trace elements and a layer of multi-purpose compost.

Then planted some lettuce and parsley to grow on alongside the strawberries that were already in the bed. I know we’re not tight for space but waste is waste and I’m happier utilising the space than not.

I’m also growing a couple of pots of parsley. I really like it and I’d grow more but Val’s not very keen, memories of parsley sauce on school dinners. Shame as it’s very good for you. Parsley is loaded with vitamins K and C as well as iron, calcium and potassium. Perhaps our most nutrient-dense herb.

Vitavia Greenhouse Re-glazed, Glass Washed

The Vitavia greenhouse is now re-glazed and the glass in both greenhouses thoroughly washed down. Dirt and particularly algae growing on glass can reduce light transmission by 10-20% which is very significant.

Low light levels will reduce photosynthesis and nutrient uptake. With tomatoes this results in smaller, later crops, reduced disease resistance and generally poor quality and even flavour. I’ll be setting up the inside of the Vitavia this week.