[Simon O]

Ellie, don't be frightened of the ghosts of rogue potatoes they are only small and are mostly harmless

[Fleecewife]

Ellie, don't be frightened of the ghosts of rogue potatoes they are only small and are mostly harmless

 

except that the ones I left in, although growing well are now showing early signs of blight, which the newly planted plants are not.  So they've all got to come out anyway.  Mind you this used to be a potato farm 1/4  of a century ago so there's blight entrenched here, on the tomatoes too.

[pgkevet]

I'l hunt around for those.  I started my leeks off in 2 10" pots which are pretty deep anyway..still roots to the bottom! Most stuff otherwise starts in 3" square pots which sit in a 18 pot carrier..square pots menaing you can load the carrier and compost them up in one go..

..and, yes, economic mean-ness and they all get washed out and reused.

[Lesley Silvester]

I have potatoes growing in one of my raised beds for the second year running and I've never grown any there. They must sneak in with the compost. When they started to come through I pulled them up and found two enormous potatoes which had sprouted. How I missed them last year when I harvested the last rogue crop is beyond me. Tiny ones you expect to miss but these were about six inches long. The are fighting for space with my squashes but I see that flowers are just appearing so they'll soon be coming up and the squash can have room to expand.


RE Root-trainers, I sow my beans into toilet roll tubes or halved kitchen roll tubes and plant the lot in the ground. Would that work for onions and leeks? It certainly saves disturbing the roots.

[pgkevet]

I've met folk who also use tubes of newspaper...probbaly easily worth it when talking a dozen or two plants but I've shoved 200 leeks in, 100+ french beans, 40 climbig beans, nearly 40 runners and 50+ broad etc

[Lesley Silvester]

I've done that as well but the time it would take to do that many makes it not viable.

[clydesdaleclopper]

Ellie don't worry about the potato with the beans - they are good companion growers. Just wait until you have harvested the beans and then dig it up.


MGM - potatoes can inhibit the growth of squashes so I'd be tempted to pull yours out soon.

[ellied]

OK CC thanks.  What I've done is take the single pyramid from over the tattie and put 2 either side instead as the beans hadn't grabbed on properly yet.  Then planted a few extra beans at the outer corners just in case - might as well! 

[suziequeue]

Our onions are showing signs of too much nitrogen. This is their first year in the new raised beds which we filled with imported topsoil and mature pig manure. Hey ho - you live and learn.


Some of our onions are also bolting. I love album flowers.

[cloddopper]

I puchased 150 onion sets last year 50 white ball onions and 100 early summer crop onions  .
All were supposedly heat treated to reduce the tendency to bolt.
 almost all of the white ball onions have bolted  about 20%  of the Sturton giants  have bolted .
 It is I suspect down to the mild winter and then a short sharp cold spell in mid Feb then dry for a fortnight and a very wet  March , April & first half of May .
Nature has fooled the plants into thinking that a spring growth period occurred followed by sharp cold winter & now  summer has arrived , because they are biennials they have flowered in what the onion thinks is their second year .

 All is not lost with these bolted onions you can boil them with carrots and other root veg aqnd freeze the result for using in soups in winter , you can also make gallons of stock and freeze or high pressure can /bottle sterilize it in  a sealed sterilized jar .
you can soften them in the frying  pan or a dep heavy pan with a knob of butter and freeze them in ready to use portions for hot dogs , burgers and of course adding to gravy's.

 I used garden lops and cut the tops of these flowering onions , eased the plant out the bed taking care not to disturb other nonflowering onions and left the bulbs to ripen for a few days on a wire screen .
Tomorrow they get processed one way or another , the  best white bulb'd  ones will get put on the mandolin slicer and end up as  fine sliced raw onions either in gazpacho soup or raw in pittas with the kebab type salad  , wrap with a medley of thin sliced veg and perhaps some fines chopped chicken breast , ham or even slightly spicy dry beef or pork mince as a Mexican style dish   or on a plated salad .
 If your fridge can hold 3 oC they will keep sliced for three or more days if covered in cling film .
 

If you wash the cropped onions & trim off the roots they will keep a week or so in the crisper drawer in a poly zip lock type  bag with a drop of cold water to feed them  .
 A few stood in an inch or so water in a jug in the fridge will also keep for a 10 days or so but you need to change the water and jug as well as rinse off the onion under cold running water every three days to stop thing s going slimy .