I hand ploughed in-between the spud rows to earth them up. Afterwards My Bride gave them a good dousing with canal water in the furrows. It was exceedingly hot and sweaty work. The weather here has been so dry lately, that everything has had to have extra water. We are watering every third day or so. We may get some rain.
"Is potato" in home made potato bag, so far. I will run out of the soil mix for covering them. I do have a small mountain of well aged tree chips - maybe I should try those next? Also aged tree leaves... "Is potatoes" in grow-bags in planter box. Among other things. Those bags are filled in to tops, now. One advantage, these are on my irrigation drip lines, if needed. These are growing well on top. Who knows what's going on down below, where garden gnomes hide precious tubers in the soil under potato plants?
@Sjoerd your rows of potatoes are so nice, mine droop their leaves in shame and embarrassment. My in-ground potatoes are transitioning from trenches to hills too, much more slowly. Your soil is so black and rich looking. Black garden gold.
Daniel, I am liking the looks of your container foliage—is potato. Actually, all of your containers have things going on in them. Are you satisfied so far? You must be well chuffed with how your system is working for you. I marvel every time I see that stained, bag enclosure. I can no longer plough in-between my spud rows because the foliage is so profuse that I do not want to bruise them for fear of disease entering them.
@Sjoerd, I enjoy that bag enclosure. Another cedar fence came down this Spring. I'm keeping the boards to build a second enclosure. The bags contain red grocery potatoes (2 bags), Envol early white potatoes (2 bags), carnations (1 bag), shallots (2 bags), statice (1 bag), a dwarf cherry tomato, and Serrano peppers (1 bag). The only thing that doesn't look good is the tomato. Maybe it needs fertilizer. Main potato field today. Some need more hilling up already. I planted the rear-most row in February. I like them at this stage - easy to cultivate and weed. Second field, late season potatoes. That big green plant is a lupine. I wanted to dig it up but it was too big so I left it there.
@Daniel W - I'm happy to see that I am not the only soul with random giant lupins that are left alone ( and then hacked off once blooms are spent??)
Those spuds are looking good, Daniel. I like this time too, for the same reason. Weeding and ploughing to earthen-up really is so much easier.
@Melody Mc. yes, the lupins grow like crazy here! This potato bed was previously California poppy, sage, lupin, and gigantic Shasta daisy. Plus some lavender. It's been a challenge cleaning it up. I did transplant the sage and lavender. The California poppies are the major "weed" but filling in the trenches took care of them.
I was cautioned about California Poppies the first year that I planted them. Thankfully I was able to harvest the seed pods and only a few volunteered the next year. Now I have them in planters. My neighbour had acres of the giant lupines. The newer owners have cleaned it up considerably, but there is still hundreds of them. I have about five that pop up ( that I did not plant) no matter what I do,so I just accept them now, enjoy them and then cut them off at the ground. By fall....here they come again. hahahaha They are hard to get rid of. Good thing they are so majestic when they show themselves....to live another day. Tricksters. Hopefully your potatoes put the poppies in their place.
Potato question for the talented potato growers out there....I had to dig holes instead of trench my potatoes. Hopefully next year I can trench, but the concept has worked brilliantly for me. ( still very grateful for this idea being shared) The soil I have in this particular part of the garden is quite heavy. I have to fill in again, but I am wondering if I should now put down a bit of mulch ( wood chips/clippings etc) and then a layer of soil to break it up? Or would it be best to continue with the soil until it is level, and then perhaps use some mulch around them? It's difficult to see in the photo, but I think I have two more filling-ins before the ground is level.
If I look at your picture above and then read the questions you are posing, I wonder what you are wanting to achieve with mulching and what you want to achieve with earthing-up with soil? Personally, I make a distinction and normally do not combine the two applications. Why do I earth-up with soil? Well, it has to do with the way spuds work. You plant the seed spud, it sends up underground stems which form leaves on the distal end. New tubers form off the stem. My theory is that the longer the underground stems are, the more tubers can form. You lengthen the underground stems by adding soil. Now then, for me mulching has a different purpose. Mulching in the summer time can keep down weed growth, but the primary purpose is to hold moisture. If I would mulch my spuds, I would be afraid that keeping the stems constantly exposed to moisture might cause the stems to rot or form unfriendly fungal infections.I have to be careful with moisture here because we are a low and moist land. I believe that Odif uses mulch when growing his spuds with no untoward results, so he could have a different take on this. Referring back to your pic, it seems that your potato foliage and foliage stems are still quite short. I am not sure if they need earthing-up yet unless there is a real possibility of frost. Earthing-up is a personal choice made that should be based upon what one’s goals are. Your plant rows seem close together, I hope that you will have enough soil to earth-up your plants. BTW, what did you mean when you said, “…two more filling-ins before the ground is level”? I do not understand what you are trying to do by making the ground level. Are you trying to earthen-up the plants as well as the space between the rows? Well mate, I do not know if my comments help you in any way, but I find this question ann interesting one and hopefully several folks will offer suggestions for you to consider. Anyhow, I will enjoy following your spud farming and see how your choices will work for you in your situation.
Thank you for the thoughtful reply Sjoerd. I think perhaps in my excitement at the idea of planting in a trench, I thought that I may not have to hill.......ermmmm... yeah. When I was a young one, I was taught to plant with a hoe. "dig dig spud." Turn 45 degrees...."dig dig spud". The next hole would bury the first. Needless to say I had to hill a LOT and never could do enough. My train of thought was that once I filled in my holes (trench) I would be done and the potatoes would just do their thing. It sounds like I should still hill as much as I can after the holes are filled. You are right, that they are a little close together. I had that spot reserved for the potatoes, and had more potato than patch. I have some soil set off to the side that I can use as well, and I usually dig out the path way along the potatoes also. The mulching, I was considering as a way to make the soil where the spuds are not quite as heavy/clay like. My garden flooded for two weeks in early summer two years ago and the soil hasn't been the same since. I've been adding mulch between the rows everysince to turn in the fall to try and help. I had read last year that one can use mulch or lawn clippings instead of soil to hill. I tried this last year with clippings with dismal results. The heat was extreme (42 C) and I couldn't get enough moisture to the soil through the canopy of the potatoes. Many of us, with the weather had one giant potato per hill. It was a strange weather year. When do you stop hilling and decide that they need to do their own thing? Mine tend to flop over, and I always thought that must be something I'm doing wrong. The greens in the photo are quite wee, as they only sprouted a couple weeks ago, and as they show a bit of stem, a move in a bit of dirt. I have to harvest my potatoes early , before the plants die - usually around the end of August/early Sept otherwise there is not enough time for them to dry/cure , and the ground freezes before I can prep the garden for winter. Thank you again.
When I stop hilling up. There are some factors that determine this: How fast the spud’s foliage grow At what point the foliage from the rows grow into each other How much soil I gan get from between the rows with ploughing Needless to say, it is different each year. You have to harvest early: You could order early or even late early seed potatos so that you can harvest on time. The time frame for harvesting is between 90 and 100 days from when you plant them in my area. We use earlies and late early spuds because of our short season and to avoid the Phytophthora season. What is the name of the potato’s that you planted this year? About the mulch you used last year: It is so, that green wood chips and fresh grass clippings leech nitrogen from the soil in order to break down. Whether it is always enough to cause poor growth and development to one’s crops people debate. My personal experience is that this is true. Having said that, I know that some folks do it regularly and still get good harvests. I was sorry to hear about your land being flooded. That can so seriously compact your soil that you will need to seriously dig, fork and break it up to get more air into it. Good luck this year.
Thank you Sjoerd. I understand what you are saying with the hilling. I'll put more thought into my space next year. I was reading more about your forking/digging and it is a good idea. We had to till early this year and the soil was still damp from a large pile of snow melting. That did not help the situation at all. I didn't realize there were early and late potatoes. That helps a lot. I planted Dark Red Norland and Goldrush. I looked it up and my Norlands are early reds, and the Goldrush looks late season. Hopefully the reds bloom earlier as I can't remember which went where. I guess it is time to do some reading and checking the calendar. This shift from survival gardener ( throw things in and hope they grow) to more educated and deliberate is quite the learning curve. But I'm LOVING it. It has given me something positive to focus on. Thank you again for your patient explanation.
How good is that then. It is always good to see someone taking gardening seriously. It can be lots more fun that way. It is one of those hobbies that gets more and more interesting as time goes on…year after year. One becomes aware that they become better and better. Gardeners can never know it all, I think that one thing that has kept my interest going is listening to others and trying new things. I think that I have grown Norlands a while back, but I cannot recall anything about their texture or flavour. Good to hear that you have been loosening up your compacted soil. I can’t wait to see how everything goes for you this season.
