august full moon is ideal for planting potatoes in mild temperate to cool temperate zones.
after months of soil prep – add sand, mushroom compost, cow manure, my compost and potash, basalt, phosphate and carbon – time to plant -
here are the four stages – trenching, planting, mounding and mulching.
looking great pepe, you should get a bumper harvest out of that lot !
Happy Potter said:
looking great pepe, you should get a bumper harvest out of that lot !
thanks HP
need to get 25 kgms – hopefully more.
we’re in the age of the boutique gourmet spud – a lot more demanding than when they were plain old spuds. LOL.
I have some good years and some disappointing years growing spuds. Enough water at the right time seems inportant. Last year I grew some in a bed I left up to nature to water and there just wasn’t enough rain.
bluegreen said:
I have some good years and some disappointing years growing spuds. Enough water at the right time seems inportant. Last year I grew some in a bed I left up to nature to water and there just wasn’t enough rain.
i think that’s true BG – i’ve had good and bad crops according to the rain as well.
at least i’ve planted in damp soil this year.
pepe said:
bluegreen said:
I have some good years and some disappointing years growing spuds. Enough water at the right time seems inportant. Last year I grew some in a bed I left up to nature to water and there just wasn’t enough rain.
i think that’s true BG – i’ve had good and bad crops according to the rain as well.
at least i’ve planted in damp soil this year.
It’s wonderful when you get a good crop though – the taste of fresh home grown spuds is far superior to the bought ones :)
Mine will be in this afternoon….. better be….Looks good and I love the photos.
I’ve brought all my seed spuds inside to see if they’ll chit in the warmer temperature. All their pots are set out in the new wood yard area that we cleared yesterday. (doesn’t take me long to fill a space!) I cut in half 2 more pantry spuds with long shoots and planted them in a smaller pot. All the other pantry spuds have green leaves up :) I think I’ll take the camera for a walk…………….
you did a wonderful thing improving the soil however, spuds don’t require a humus rich soil…..although the next lot of vegies after the spuds will surely appreciate it.
some people use a crop of spuds as the first crop in virgin garden bed/soil. the spuds must be producing some wonderful enzyme or such…as after growing a crop of spuds the soil is all loose and crumbly all around them.
some people use a crop of spuds as the first crop in virgin garden bed/soil. the spuds must be producing some wonderful enzyme or such…as after growing a crop of spuds the soil is all loose and crumbly all around them.
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My first planting of spuds years ago, was grown on the lawn. Great way to get rid of lawn and start up a no-dig garden.
aquarium said:
you did a wonderful thing improving the soil however, spuds don’t require a humus rich soil…..although the next lot of vegies after the spuds will surely appreciate it.
some people use a crop of spuds as the first crop in virgin garden bed/soil. the spuds must be producing some wonderful enzyme or such…as after growing a crop of spuds the soil is all loose and crumbly all around them.
the clay is really bad and i dare not let it dry out like it did last summer. so i will be mulching very heavily.
i still have some uncertified spuds to plant and i will use a new (virgin) patch to plant these.
5kg of chats cost me $1.69 – so i have to yield about 2kg of spuds to break even. i should achieve that – even without watering – since i’m planting 5kg – chuckle
gypsum + bentonite to improve clay soil with silt in it. but it gets expensive unless you can source these in bulk.
does anyone know the best time of year to plant spuds in tropical north Queensland? Townsville to be specific?
I was thinking of doing a barrel system like Josh Byrnes did on GA the other week.
spanner said:
does anyone know the best time of year to plant spuds in tropical north Queensland? Townsville to be specific?I was thinking of doing a barrel system like Josh Byrnes did on GA the other week.
Spanner, I don’t know that spuds will grow very well in Nth Qld. Here in Darwin we grow sweet potatoes all year round but haven’t heard of anyone growing spuds. They might be ok if you start them at the beginning of the Dry, but it’s starting to get a bit more humid here so I imagine it’s pretty much the same there.
Crinkle said:
spanner said:
does anyone know the best time of year to plant spuds in tropical north Queensland? Townsville to be specific?I was thinking of doing a barrel system like Josh Byrnes did on GA the other week.
Spanner, I don’t know that spuds will grow very well in Nth Qld. Here in Darwin we grow sweet potatoes all year round but haven’t heard of anyone growing spuds. They might be ok if you start them at the beginning of the Dry, but it’s starting to get a bit more humid here so I imagine it’s pretty much the same there.
they grew a lot in Katherine at one stage. probably best to ring the Townsville ag college to see what varity is best.
Mine are officially dead. I must hand it to one of them: it made 3 attempts to reproduce before the heat (mostly) dehydrated it…
So I am going to start a 3 sisters in that quarter…
:) :) :)