Potato Barrel

[karrot]

Hi all,
I was hoping to try and grow some potato's next year, but haven't yet got round to making room for them, and i doubt i will.  I was looking through the Thompson and Morgan catalogue and noticed something called a potato barrel.  Are these any good? They look such a good idea and not half as much work as other methods.

[karrot]

[colleenemp]

We grew some second earlies called 'Colleen' - slight 'dig' at me - in an old dustbin by the back door this year a la Monty Don Gardeners World, was reasonably successful :)

[spacehopper]

Hi Karrot,

You could always use the famous Wardy no dig method to grow your potatos. Cover the undug, unprepared ground with cardboard, then manure, put seed tatos in and cover with black plastic. When the tatos sprout cut a slit in the plastic for the leaves to poke through. To harvest, simply lift the plastic. No digging and no weeding!

Caz

[budgiebreeder]

I use th large compost bags(with holes cut in)and have found this successful, if i put a helping of manure in .Just putting more soil or homemade compost in as  if i was earthing up.It's east to just slit the bag open when ready.

[Annadl]

With the no dig method do you keep earthing up on top of the plastic where the potatoes have sprouted?  If so how high do you go?  When do you know to stop earthing up and just letting the potatoes grow?

Doesn't the hilling up need some retaining?

You can see I've never done this before ;D

(sorry for the silly questions)

[timf]

try some old car tyres stacked on top of each other

[wardy]

With the no dig spuds I don't think you need to earth up as the spuds are under black plastic which excludes light.  I did cover them with clean straw if frost was forecast but it all gets very messy when it's windy and raining.  You then have to clear it off if it hasn't blown away already  ;D

I grew spuds in grow bags with manure and growbag compost in but I used Cara and the tall foliage made them a bit top heavy so I'm growing Picasso in tubs and containers this year.  My best container spuds were grown in a huge plastic tub which I got cheap from Tesco (£3)  :)

[sandersj89]

Have a look here to see how I do it each year to get an early crop.


http://www.allotments4all.co.uk/yabbse/index.php/topic,7174.0.html

Jerry

[rosebud]

Thank you for that information Jerry.

[MikeB]

Thanks Jerry, excellent article and photos

[Hot_Potato]

I've just been reading the very helpful info contained in Jerry's blog....amongst the other messages there is one from Wardy who says she was using an old wash basket.....what I'd like to know Wardy is....do you have to line the inside of the wash basket (you said it was one of the 'holey' type) before filling with soil/compost etc. surely otherwise the soil all falls thru the holes after watering, especially if outside later and it's in a downpour?

or have I got the wrong picture in my head?

[wardy]

I used manure which is quite solid and sticks together.  You have to water it though and it forms a rock hard mass if it's cow manure which mine was.  The best results though were from the spuds grown in the huge plastic tub with growbag compost. They came out so clean  :)  The manure spuds in containers were quite scabby (Cara) but those on the ground on manure Arran Pilot and Desiree were fantastic. Cara in growbag compost in big pot were excellent. 

I wouldn't buy a spud barrel as they're dead expensive and not necessary, any big container which will hold compost will do  :)

[Hot_Potato]

thanks Wardy for info - however, I continue to be totally confused about the problem of scabbing on potatoes and the fact that people mostly seem to manure their plot before planting their sets!!

Everytime I read something in reference books about potatoes, they seem to say manure causes scab!! sooooo - why does everyone seem to do it?....interested to read  tho that you say the ones you grew in tubs + compost didn't scab yet the ones in tubs + manure  did scab but not the ones in manure in the ground  ???.....just don't understand it....

last year (my first with lottie) my earlies were Foremost, very prolific & of good size but very scabby but I hadn't manured (altho tatties were fine under the skin) the plot had laid unattended but carpeted for a few years.

my lottie neighbour showed me recently the remaining Red Desiree that he'd grown - masses of wonderful huge potatoes but most had scabby skins and he manures parts of his plot every year!!

[wardy]

I grew them in it instead of soil as I had a bad back and couldn't be bothered to dig trench or earth up etc.  My bro had scab on his spuds but he didn't use manure so I don't know  ;D  There are so many variables with growing anything so you just do the research and then you can evaluate your results and then form your own conclusions. 

Maybe the variety has some impact on this as well so you can select the least scabby, least blight, most slug resistant variety, plant some in manured soil and some in unmanured soil and see what happens.  My most scabby spuds I ate first  :)

[redimp]

Maybe the variety has some impact on this as well so you can select the least scabby, least blight, most slug resistant variety...

Trouble is you can usually add least tasty to that list as well.

[wardy]

 ;D  Nah, don't be like that  ;)  My Desiree's are fab and taste great  :)

[sandersj89]

Have a look here:

http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0902/potato_skin.asp

Scab is basically a fungal disease that is worst on light soils. On my clay it is not too much of a problem and I use a lot of manure to improve the soil structure.

I also hear of people planting the seed potatoes on a bed of comfrey leaves as this is meant to help.

Jerry

[Hot_Potato]

well my soil is very light and drains well and seems to produce amazing crops of most things I sow or plant (but not the carrots this year sadly  :( which makes me wonder why my lottie neighbours, who have similar soils to me....feel the need to manure sooo heavily - do you think it's just 'programmed' into them?

something to do with 'well my Dad did it, so I'm gonna do it' sort of thing!

[karrot]

oh wow :) thankyou all for that, some very good suggestions there to be getting on with. Nice to know i can use things i probably already have around the place, and not fork out £30 for a barrel. thats not what having an allotment is about at the end of the day,
Terry thanks, that's made it all a little clearer,i'll give it a go

[colleenemp]

Like the sound of that no-dig approach. Heard the team before, but didn't really understand it. Thanks for clearing that one up for me, think I'll give it a go! :D