Trying a few things myself

 I've had so many people give me so many suggestions on what to do and what not to do for growing a happy healthy, and bountiful potato crop without any what I'd call amazing success. That in order to get some  happy healthy, and bountifully good potatoes I've decided to try a few things for myself and see how they work out.

The first of these was the placing of the seed potatoes on a layer of comfrey in the bottom of my potato trenches (you can read all about it here).

The second step is to hill them up with a stable manure and soil mix. I'm really keen on stable manure and one day I summon up a post to show you why.

Then I tipped out a bag of fresh stable next to where I planted the spuds so it could age while the tatties were coming up and then when the tatties were high enough I spread the mix around the base of the tatties in order to hill them.

Since then they have received 48mls of rain in a storm and are positively jumping out of the ground.

Close up here on the left shows a healthy potato plant that has only received the comfrey treatment.

 After the hilling. A side benefit of having the stable manure, beside the potatoes, to age is that any nutrient that might have leached out into the soil will be available to next crop I decide to plant there.

Also with the comfrey under the potatoes and the horse manure and straw on top when it comes time to harvest the potatoes there is going to be some very rich organic soil there ready for planting.

So far I am happy with the choices I have made and their growth so far and now  the only thing left for my potatoes is to keep up the straw mulch and a fortnightly application of fish emulsion and wait to see what size crop I get from them.


Cheers for now

Stewart.