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Spring Gardening with Ita

No potato and I repeat no potato tastes as good as those just picked from the soil and even those taste better if you had a hand in planting them! To keep life simple we'll split the potatoes into two categories: "earlies" harvest around July, and “main crop" harvest from September. There are such things as first/second "earlies" and early/late main crops but you need a lot of space to grow potatoes and I'd say that the average vegetable growing plot would not accommodate all of the different groups available.

Traditionally, “main crop” are planted on St. Patrick's Day and "earlies" about two weeks earlier. I think that the temperature of the soil is more important than the date and a significant impact can be made on soil temperatures by early preparation. From early February you can start preparing the trenches in which the potato tubers will be planted. Decide how much space you want to give to potatoes and dig as many trenches as the space will allow.

Start your first trench by digging down a good spades depth and placing the soil that you've dug out on the side of the trench. Remember this will go back into the trench when the tubers have been planted. When you've dug the length of the first trench, start your second one - the space where the soil is resting from the first trench will eventually become a path between the trenches for hoeing and weeding so make sure that it's wide enough for you to stand in.

Potatoes love acid, so if your soil is very alkaline three quarter fill thetrench with some rotted hay, straw or manure. If your soil is acid good compost will do. If you don't know which your soil is, there are soil-testing kits available from gardening centres or just look around the area that you live in. If there are rhododendrons, camellias or blue hydrangeas growing near you it's more than likely that you have acid soil, no rhododendrons, camellias and hydrangeas that are red/pink will more than likely mean that you have alkaline soil. Cover the trenches and the soil at the side with newspapers or old black polythene that you can re-use year after year and leave covered till you're ready to plant out.

In the mean time chit the tubers by placing them in a box or on a tray (those old trays that held about three dozen eggs were ideal for this) with the "eye" at the top, put them in a frost free shed and let them sprout till planted. Some people still prefer to test the temperature of the soil by sitting bare bottomed on it - this can be a little embarrassing in an urban environment or on public allotments - but I prefer to use my hands. By about mid March when you reach under the polythene or newspapers and pick up a handful of soil it should definitely feel warm, and you're ready to plant! Uncover the trenches and place a sprouted tuber - sprout end up - about every eighteen inches. When the trench is planted up, backfill it with the soil on the side, mound it up don't try to flatten it down - say about 4 inches of soil should be covering the tuber. I would only water if there were very little rain within a week of planting. Within a few weeks you'll see the green leaves coming through the soil but in order to encourage more potatoes to grow and to protect from frost, use a hoe and draw up soil from the path in between the trenches to cover the growth. Continue to do this till all risk of frost has past - in most inland areas this would possible be around June 6th/7th. Your potato trenches should then be well covered and look like a significant mound of earth.

The very lush growth of the tubers will play a good roll in suppressing weeds but play a good part yourself by constantly hoeing between the plants and the rows. The foliage will then produce a pretty white/purple flower and after that has died you can start digging your first potatoes. Don't dig up a whole plant at first. Scrape the earth away from the bottom of the mound and root around till you find some potatoes and just pull them out. When you've cooked them if they're inclined to be "watery" leave harvesting for a couple of weeks and have another try. When they're satisfactory, start digging up a plant as you need to and detach the potatoes from it - you'll find plenty that are already separated. Potatoes that are not used straight away need storing out of the light. Make sure that you get every potato out of the ground as next year in your rotation system you'll be growing peas and beans in the same bed and you don't want potatoes growing between them.

All of the “earlies” can be dug up and dealt with in this way but it will be slightly different with your "main crop" which will become ready to eat later and you'll want to get out of the ground before the slugs eat them or frost set in. Dig up the plants and move them to a dry dark place for a couple of days. When they're dry rub the earth off them and any that are soft separate for burning, any that are scarred - i.e. you've put the fork through them when digging them up - separate for using now, and only store in the sack or box potatoes that are perfect.

Keep all potatoes in a dark place till required for the kitchen. Unfortunately there are things that can go wrong with the potato along the way so the first time that you grow them I'd only grow "earlies". Some good varieties of "earlies" are (in my humble opinion): Colleen and Maris Peer. My best pick of the main crops would be Record and Golden Wonder.

The only source of Organic Seed potatoes that I know of is:
Fruit Hill Farm,
Cork.
Ph 027 50710.
Fax 027 51894.
email: fhf@eircom.net.

I'll talk about the things that can go wrong with potatoes in the next article. Remember potatoes can be grown in bins or deep pots as well. Add more earth as the foliage comes through.
Ita West