Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Growing in Greenhouses & Polytunnels => Topic started by: AlaninCarlisle on January 29, 2018, 14:30
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My family don't eat enough potatoes to justify me growing more than a couple of plants in bags, either in polytunnel or greenhouse. Just a couple of maybe dumb questions:
- Are they better in multi-purpose compost or good garden soil?
- As the polytunnel is usually frost-free, can they be planted now?
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I fill my spud pots with a mix of the 2 plus some extra fertiliser.
I don't actually get frost inside my greenhouse but the temperature inside still goes down as low as the temperature outside where there is frost. So I wonder what temperatures you are getting overnight in yours?
I don't plant up spud pots until mid Feb and these are wrapped up well with fleece if a cold night is forecast.
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Mid Feb sounds fine, gives em time to chit. As for fertiliser, I assume the normal Growmore is OK?
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I add Blood Fish & Bone but I expect Growmore would do the job.
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I've grown spuds in bags of my homemade compost, starting them off as others have said early to mid Feb. I've never fed them, just kept well watered and get a good crop usually about 3-4 weeks earlier than those in the ground (if planted at the same time which is rare).
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When I did them I always used multi purpose with a moderately generous admixture of chicken poo pellets and blood fish bone, generally the chicken poo in the initial fill and the BFB mix in the progressive backfill as the surface stuff grew through.
Obviously a little dearer than garden soil but without the soil borne pests the resulting crop from grow sacks and black pots would mostly emerge beautifully clean, well shaped and without pest damage.