The Accidental Smallholder Forum
Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: juliag on January 16, 2009, 10:41:38 am
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Hi there, I am about to buy and chit my first batch of potatos, I have seen that you can get 'special' potato bags that you can grow them in. I have several hessian sacks and was wondering if I could use those. any suggestions please......... Julia ???
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You could use them, but probably only once.
Dustbins are quite good, as are large pots. Another one you could try is to put a couple of car tyres on top of each other and fill with comost. Then plant your spuds. As the foliage grows, keep adding car tyes and filling with compost. That way you fet the depth the spuds need.
You wont get a great yeild though. If you have the space they will do better in the ground.
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Hi,
Hessian sacks are perfect for storing any tatties you grow - I've seen them in seed catalouges at £15 for 3.
I used big pots from instores last year to grow them in, I think they cost around £2 each and it's so much easier to harvest and ideal if you're short of space.
Plus being in pots means you can move them if conditions outside get too wet or frosty.
Hope this helps,
Karen :pig:
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Thankyou both, If I used one of the big plastic almost bucket like pots , are they called Trugs £4.99 from someshere like homebase, I would need to drill holes in the bottom? Is that right? :)
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Yes, you need the holes for drainage.
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if you have the space and the compost/soil you can grow them in the builders dumpy bags. I'm going to try this year using some of our leaf litter/soil/manure mixture got tons of it this year for some reason
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I have grown potatoes in big pots for the past few years. The diameter of the pots around 26 inches. What I did was to make sure there were drainage holes in the bottom then put in a layer of around 5 inches of compost, the 6 chitted potatoes and then covered them with soil until there was about 5 inches of compose above the potatoes. They were watered in and then when the sprouts started to show above the surface I added another few inches of compost. Kept doing this until the pot was full of compost. Once the sprouts break through the compost then just keep watering fairly regularly (depending on the weather, of course). when they flower and then when the shaws (sprouts) die back the tatties are ready to harvest.
It is such a good feeling when you tip out the compost and find all these lovely potatoes waiting for you.
Varieties i have used are charlotte and pentland javelin.
hope this helps.
martin.
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and relatively clean too!
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Thankyou that is really helpful! :) went out this morning and bought a bag of first earlies so will start chitting tonight!
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Ours never did well in any kind of containers. It might just have been too wet last year or maybe I started off too low down the container and they didn't get enough light. I'll try the car tyres this year, pumpkins and squashes are supposed to do well in them, too. Tatties were brilliant , even left in the ground until now. They're enormous, didn't suffer from the frost at all, just some areas in the garden seem to be more prone to slugs (first time I've seen them INSIDE potatoes). I wouldn't grow them in Hessian Sacks, but use those for storage instead.
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Hessian sacks might be a problem as they will be too free draining. Car tyres are a free & easy option & work well. Go down to your locak kwik fit etc and ask for tyres - they will happily give you them for nowt. Give them a good wash & clean inside & around the rims and away you go. Tyres (rubber) is inert once it has been vulcanised so there is no chance of any nasty chemicals getting into yer soil/tatties if you clean them properly (trust me I worked for Michelin for a while).
Or go scavaging around the country, there are always scummie gits who dump tyres so recycle them! I've got another 8 this year alone just from being out on my mountain bike and remembering where I saw dumped tyres - and I live in rural perthshire, so nowhere's immune!
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I got my first tyres today as I had a flat yesterday. When I mentioned what I need them for the response was "Do you need any more?". They charge customers £ 1 for recycling per tyre, so of course they are happy if you take them away.
I'm looking forward to trying this this year, squashes an pumpkins are supposed to do well in them, too. :&>
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Thanks for the tyre tip, will go along to my local garage tomorrow and smile sweetly....... :D