The Accidental Smallholder Forum

Growing => Vegetables => Topic started by: langdon on June 07, 2011, 07:33:17 pm

Title: first spuds
Post by: langdon on June 07, 2011, 07:33:17 pm

for our supper last night and tonight we had lush spuds from our garden, and boy were they good,
cant wait to get stuck into the other veg thats coming on.
hope all is going well for everyone and you are starting to enjoy your hard work ;)

langdon

Title: Re: first spuds
Post by: OhLaLa on June 07, 2011, 07:39:02 pm

First of the Globe Artichokes for us, already scoffed the Strawberries. Yum.   :yum:

Title: Re: first spuds
Post by: NorthEssexsmallholding on June 07, 2011, 07:53:04 pm

does everyone else earth their spuds up?  an old chap near me said he does not bother and you dont need to, farmers dont either, I planted mine a foot deep, but might earth them up once just to make sure.

Title: Re: first spuds
Post by: manian on June 07, 2011, 08:09:40 pm

we do earth them up..... old habbits die hard  ;D

Title: Re: first spuds
Post by: Fleecewife on June 07, 2011, 08:36:56 pm

I earth mine up.  When I haven't, some varieties haven't been too bad, but some tend to form the tubers close to the surface and they mostly went green and inedible.  I quite like earthing up - must be a masochist  ;D
Nothing ready here except mixed salad leaves etc.  Some peas looking promising, lettuce on it's way, spuds a long way off.......

It's wonderful picking those first tasty crops  :yum:

Title: Re: first spuds
Post by: Greenerlife on June 22, 2011, 08:50:31 am

I didn't have a fork with me yesterday when I went to check my spuds, so I only had one Pentland Javelin for lunch!  That way my newly-painted nail varnish doesn't look too tatty!  (excuse the pun!  ;D).

The first potato is always the best. I have left half my potatoes unearthed up.  I would like to say it's a planned experiment, but no, I never got round to doing it, so now it's an experiment!

Title: Re: first spuds
Post by: chriso on June 24, 2011, 08:02:36 pm

I have never needed to until this year. I usually plant quite deep and struggle to get them all out of the ground. This year i planted shallow and the have ben showing out of the soil - earth up if you don't want green tatties!

Title: Re: first spuds
Post by: Plantoid on June 25, 2011, 03:49:50 am

Earthing up the spuds gets the ground warmer due to the larger surface area of the ridge so the spuds grow quicker , being triangular in the shape of the mound also helps soak up the rain on the greater surface area so in light shower weather the spuds still can get enough moisture.

i'm thinking that the perdson who says farmers never earth up  can't have seen many spud fields .. not only do all the above  comments apply , the ridge is also the basis for the harvesting machines to be able to operate effectively in the most economicaly viable way

Title: Re: first spuds
Post by: suziequeue on June 25, 2011, 06:55:58 am

Interesting plantoid. Thanks.

Makes me feel a bit less guilty about not watering my spuds at the moment. It's been chuckung down with rain every day for AGES  :-[ :-[

We earthed up four times and could still have done more!!