No Dig Tatties

Anyone else use the ‘no dig’ technique for growing their spuds, tried it last year, very successfully, they’re in again this year, hopefully, will have ‘lates’ too :slightly_smiling_face:

Give us a quick walk through of your method please Bill :relaxed:

Bare surface, I use the strimmer, put the spuds on the bare surface, cover them with some compost (dosen’t need a lot), then cover with grass cuttings, each time I cut the grass I put the cutting on. Thats it, crop is easy to lift and they are very clean potatoes.:slightly_smiling_face:

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Similar to Bill’s idea…Father in Law used to grow delicious potatoes in a bin-liner containing a little earth adding compost now and then as the shoots grew…

These cropped from early to mid summer… after which time, he had had enough :wink:

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Wow, I’m going to give that a try. What spuds do you grow or will any variety do? And when you say “late” when do you put down your last crop and when will they be ready to harvest? I’m a townie with not much gardening experience especially au potage but have a very skilled and helpful paysanist neighbour who is coaching and mentoring me. And running me ragged! :sweat:

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We just plant old tatties that have sprouted, ‘past eating’ Peter, harvest when they have flowered and the tops die off, we will plant the lates when we lift these, Babeth is going to post a video, (thats beyond a simple sailor :roll_eyes:)may help, good luck:+1:

Think your French is pretty good Peter, self explanatory anyway, other videos follow too. :slightly_smiling_face:

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We’ve successfully grown spuds in wood chippings as well - very similar idea, we chip the branches we prune from the fruit trees, then later in the year we use the chippings to grow spuds in - it makes it really easy to get at a few of the “young” potatoes at a time, so you can keep harvesting small quantities for ages :slight_smile:

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Suppose it has a lot to do with just keeping them covered, stop them going green, the compost gives them a kick start :slightly_smiling_face:

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:+1::+1::yum: Great stuff all round!

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Yep… you just keep adding stuff, as the sprouting tops/leafy bits grow taller… ie let them just keep their heads in the light and the potatoes form in the darkness below… almost like magic.:open_mouth:

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In America they grow them in straw beds on top of concrete.
They have so much straw left after the wheat harvest that one day someone worked out what was the best way to use it. We have tried it over here after we combined the wheat crop at our farm and like you write Stella you just keep adding it to the growing tops.
It works okay while you get plenty of rain but in a drought the results are not very good and you have to put up with Badgers and crows tossing the straw about looking for something to eat.

Anyone else got them in, ours are showing good tops, hope they do as well as last year, hope to get ‘lates’ in too. :slightly_smiling_face:

Earlies just starting to flower and lates a few weeks behind, we always try to have the first boiling of the new spuds the first week in june, just a tad late this year due to the cold spell that we had last week.