The Potato:

 

Family:

Solanaceae - other members include: tomatoes, peppers

 

Type of Soil:

They like a fertile, acid soil (over a PH of 4.6) Add plenty of compost for this vegetable, it is a very hungry plant. We have successfully used bought pelleted chicken manure & we have composted our own chicken manure and used this too.

 

How many to grow?

We take a calculated guess. Example: Say your family uses 5kg per week then Multiply 5 by 52 for your years supply. How ever I would reccomend adding on an extra 25% (this allows for a few extra to give to grateful neighbours/friends).

So your final figure is 5 x 52 = 260 then add on the quarter 260 x 1.25 = 325kg.

 

Expected Return:

Maincrop:

Trench(normal) method 10ft row is 9kg,

Biointensive 50kg per 100sq ft, beginner levels

 

Seed Needed:

10ft Row is 700g of seed potato

Biointensive:100sq ft needs 10kg of potato.

 

When to sow:

Earlies - Late March

Maincrop - Mid to Late April

 

Spacing:

Normal - Early - Rows are 24" apart with plants 12" apart. Maincrop - Rows are 30" apart with plants 15" apart & 5" deep. Remember rows require earthing up as they grow.

Biointensive - 9" centres & 9" deep, no need to earth up the biointensive.

 

Troubles:

Blight - we grow Sarpo Mira a blight resistant variety. Otherwise spray with fortnightly with Bordeaux mixture during hot and humid weather. Start watching RTE's agricultural weather these guys give a blight warning. Scab - Unsightly looking but does no harm.

 

Harvest:

Earlies in June/July

Maincrop can be lifted from August to early October

 

Store:

Store in a cool dark ventilated place. A traditional method is clamping your potatoes but speaking to people who have clamped it has put us off. We have used potato sacks in black bins and checked them regularly as well as being very careful about the quality of spud that we have stored. Anything that was damaged got put in the use right away pile.

 

Fun to try:

Christmas spuds- we are going to try & grow a few under cover for Christmas dinner. Here's how - when we lift our earlies we are going to put a few aside & use them as seed potatoes. In September we will plant them as per biointensive methods (you can use the normal row method) then put a low tunnel over them for protection and cross our fingers. With a wee bit of luck you should be having lovely new potatoes for Christmas dinner.

 

Note:

Chitting - we don't for our maincrop but for the earlies we do. Here's our method, we pop them into egg trays (taking care to keep the end with the most "eyes" up) and place them in a warm, bright room (no direct sunlight).

 

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