Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: m1ckz on December 04, 2017, 17:21
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hi all i think im forced to plant my potatoes in the same place next year advice ?
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Grow some mustard as a green manure in the bed first, it can help deal with wireworms which can be a problem for spuds. Bear in mind that it's a brassica though, so keep that in mind for your rotation plans.
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If you really have no alternative, is it possible to put the new rows where the gaps between the ridges were last year? That way the new ones won't grow in exactly the same space, although they will be in the same bed.
Manure well and keep your fingers crossed that there are no viruses left from the previous crop :closedeyes:
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Be very careful of any missed from the previous year. They can develop into "volunteers" carrying the "B" word!
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Grow some mustard as a green manure in the bed first, it can help deal with wireworms which can be a problem for spuds. Bear in mind that it's a brassica though, so keep that in mind for your rotation plans.
I didn't know about mustard helping with wireworm, I haven't grown any spuds for several years because of that problem, I might try again now following your advice.
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Professional spud growers must use the same land every year so see if you can get any info from them and also look at the RHS website.
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I've been involved in growing potatoes for a number of years now when we grew potatoes on the farm we never grew spuds on the same ground twice because it was said that growing potatoes on the same ground encouraged disease and also may have a smaller crop of spuds
so I always use crop rotation on the allotment but if you have no alternative then give it a go
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I know a number of growers in this area who have used the same piece of land for spuds for 6 or 7 years with no obvious ill effects. Two of them add large amounts of well-rotted manure each year but I don't know what pest control methods they employ. Not saying we should all be doing this but people can get a bit hung up on crop rotation. I can understand the sense of it when growing on a field scale but for a small veg. plot with so many different crops in close association it may not be as critical as some think. I've often wondered how square foot gardeners manage their rotation. I suspect that most soil-borne pests are able to move more than a foot or two in any direction.