Final Chapter of Potato Experiment

If you have visited previously, you will know that I planted 6 varieties of potato in bags and containers, and gathered potatoes from under the plants, disturbing the roots as little as possible, and leaving the top growth flourishing.

Now that the plants (they were all first earlies) have died back, I tipped the containers and bags out, gathering the last of each variety, as hoped, they all produced a second crop, but not uniformly, see photograph below...

Well worth doing again.

Abbot, Dunluce, Sherine, Accent, Rocket

Here are the containers, now cleaned and planted up with (chitted) Charlotte potatoes, which I bought from Little Groves, Beaminster. Hopefully they should give new potatoes for Christmas (they'll go into a greenhouse when frost is in the air).

Containers of Charlotte potatoes planted today for Christmas

In the foreground is the cut-back green manure, soon to be dug in.

More Potatoes

The container-grown potatoes have now moved out of the greenhouse, but we are continuing to get plenty from the plants.

Here are the ones I brought in today, again by putting my hand down into the soil and pulling out potatoes, to (hopefully) have the plants carry on producing.

Dunluce (left) and Winston (right)

More information on the potatoes:

Dunluce
Winston

Potatoes in the greenhouse

Well, the previous post showed the potato bags and pots in the greenhouse, and that has been a most successful experiment, one to be followed again next year.

I have taken potatoes from three of the bags so far, each time putting my hand down into the soil, in the hope that the plants may carry on, though having grown in the greenhouse they are quite leggy and one issue is that the greater heat in the greenhouse means they do dry out more quickly.

Here is a picture of the produce of the rummage I just did in one bag.

Container Potatoes - Rocket

Raised beds no more

For the last 10 to 12 years I have grown vegetables in raised beds. I say raised, they were contained within boards about 25cm high - not very raised compared to some I saw in Austria which could be worked standing up, nevertheless, my beds helped to keep the plots organised.

I have done wooden sides twice now, I replaced them, the first time they rotted, with scaffold boards, they too have now rotted and so I have dug them out and the damp-proof membrane I put under them (which didn't inhibit rotting as it turns out). Apart from the cost of wood, something else putting me off is that, when I tool the boards up I discovered they had been excellent pathways for couch grass and bindweed.

I shall keep the same size of beds, so that I don't have to stand on the soil - one of the major reasons for raised beds - in this case I can achieve that by keeping them about 1 metre wide, so they can be reached into from either side.

Here are 2 photos of the now dug out beds and one in the greenhouse of six containers of potatoes (I couldn't of course plant outside).

Beds gone 

Beds gone, path remains

6 different varieties of potato in containers

Veggie Patch in Transition

The raised bed edges,  made from second-hand scaffold boards, have now rotted so badly that this year I have dug them all out. I will retain the same beds, of a width that I won't have to stand on them at all, but not with any edging around. Not much clearing left to do, before I then sow lots of green manure.

Leeks and Birds

As I sit, with the sound of near-freezing rain striking the study window, the aroma of home-made leek and potato soup (with leeks fresh dug this morning) rises up to temp me.
Between showers I have been treated to displays of visiting birds (which is more than can be said for the Big Garden Bird Watch at the weekend, when it seems the birds had, literally, taken flight). There has been a Nuthatch, several Long-Tailed Tits, Blue Tits, Great Tits, Bull Finch, Gold Finch, Blackbirds, Dunnock and Sparrows, all in the space of quarter of an hour or so.

Even on a pretty awful day for gardening, the garden has given both food and pleasure.

A Proper Summer

After raking over a recently dug potato bed (or part of one) yesterday and sowing some green manure seeds (clover, mustard and field beans) I had a taste of what it must be like gardening in Greece or the South of France, not because I was carrying in a basketful of Mediterranean vegetables, but because I was baked! The temperature got very close to 30 degrees C. I've been regularly spraying into the greenhouses, just to cool them a little.

Here are a few pictures of how things are looking at the moment.

French Marigolds and Tomatoes

Foreground, roots bed under net, behind that potatoes, middle - two Courgettes (Black Forest F1) which I moved in their pots from the greenhouse where they'd given us early courgettes

Onions (spring planted sets), peas, beans (runner and climbing French)

Brassica beds under nets, nearer cabbages, etc, further Brussels sprouts, broccoli 

Potatoes (not been a good crop). On left, one of the climbing courgettes, also in bed catch crop of summer spinach the bare bit is fresh sown green manure seeds

Freshly planted leeks, replacing broad beans. Under net summer sown carrot, swede and beetroot. The shadows are seed heads on the elephant garlic - I decided to let them flower for the display and for the bees.

Four more climbing courgettes, they were planted out in pots after danger of frost had passed. Blackcurrants under net and gooseberries top the left.

Wild flowers and elder (elderflower wine in "plopping" away happily) on the bank behind some of the compost bins

Differences between organic and non-organic food?

Spread across my desk are seed packets from lettuce and salad leaf seeds sown yesterday as part of my usual successional sowing:

Lettuce - Colour shades mixed (T&M), Little Gem (T&M), Lobjoits Green Cos (Kings Seeds) and Mazur (free trial from DT Brown)

Salad Leaves - Green Spray Mibuna (Sea Spring Seeds - a lovely local seed company here in Dorset), Nice n Spicey Mixed (T&M), Speedy Mix (T&M), Wild Herby Leaf mix (also local - Pennard Plants).

When we eat them fresh from the garden it will be in the knowledge that nothing has been applied to the soil or the plants that will be harmful to either or to us. 

Can that be said of all foods, I doubt it and recently published research reports significant differences between organically and conventionally produced food.

Well worth a read:

Clear differences between organic and non-organic food, study finds

See also further discussion:

Will eating organic food make you healthier?

Hot beds, cold hands

Last year was a cold spring here in Dorset and things got off to a very slow start (or, as in the case of my wild flower bank, didn't get off to a start at all). So this year I thought I'd help some of the plants to have warm feet at least, by creating hot beds in one of the greenhouses. (There's a good article by Bunny Guinness - BBC Radio 4 Gardeners' Question Time panelist - in The Telegraph)

I loose-laid 3 courses of bricks on edge in the smaller greenhouse to create a three-sided raised bed over a foot deep. Into the bottom went the remains of over-wintered brassica plants, on top of that went fresh horse manure, then dry garden shreddings, followed by quite a depth of fresh pulled weeds and comfrey (mixed with torn-up egg boxes). On top of that went a good layer of mature horse manure (the manure was mature, I've no idea of the age of the horses) and finally I tipped on a layer of compost.

Of course, now I'm fussing over it. I have been going into the greenhouse each morning and feeling the compost, which is nice and soft to the touch, then pushing my hand into the layers (I can almost hear you saying "yuck") to see if it feels warm - which it doesn't really, not yet anyway.

The hot beds

It's not all hot-bed fun, other jobs have been done too of course, here's a couple more pictures, just to give a flavour of spring progress.

Inside the cold frame, cabbage, leeks, peas, spring onions

View over garlic and shallots,
with, behind, fleece-covered potatoes and bean poles a-ready.

Potatoes and seeds

Each year we hold a Potato Day in the Village - and despite the weather plenty of determined gardeners braved the showers and pot-holed roads to come and select their seed potatoes and other plants and seeds.

Here is my list:

Charlotte, First Early, Waxy - always a favourite on the veggie patch and in the kitchen
Marfona, Second Early, Waxy - One of the most flavoursome of potatoes I know.
Rosabelle, First Early, Waxy - a lovely red potato, very tasty.
Roseval, Second Early, Waxy - recommended by Chris, of Pennard Plants - should be tasty.
Sarpo Mira, Main Crop, Floury - the "insurance" potato - if there's blight - they'll still produce.
Valor, Early Main, Waxy - Another favourite from previous years.

I also couldn't resist some of Pennard Plant's Heritage and Heirloom seeds, including:

Pea, Dwarf Mangetout - Shiraz. It's purple podded (I grew a blue podded one last year, really handy for finding them on the plant.)
Tomato, Small - Father Frost - Dedushka Moroz (sounds like a Winter Olympian)
Tomato, Beefsteak - Abraham Lincoln. A deep red cropper, let's hope it doesn't come a cropper like it's name's sake.
Salad leaves:
Bluebells Oriental Bright and Spicy - a cool weather mix
Wild Herby leaf - a herby cut and come again
Japanese leaf, Oriental Greens, Kyoto leaf mustard, more to cut and come again.