[puravida]

I was lucky enough to get two half plots last week. One half has already been dug into beds albeit they need some tidying up. The other half is pure meadow - never been touched.

I'm keen to get both sides working as soon as I can.

What is the minimum I'd need to do to the ground to get my spuds going on the uncultivated side. Can I dig a couple of trenches directly into the grassland and just chuck them in do you think??? Or do I need to do more prep work?

Jon

Photo here - it is the left hand side in this photo....

[compostqueen]

you can put sheets of cardboard down on your growing area and then manure (thick layer) then add your spuds and either chuck more muck on top

You can cover that lot with black sheet mulch but you have to make holes in it for the spuds to grow out of so it could be dear.  I was lucky to get some free from a strawberry grower with holes already in it     it works but I got shrews nesting in there and they ate me Kerr Pinks    Desirees were fine though. So I left off the mulch the last time I did it and they were fine. Manure makes the taters a tad a scabby but if you're eating them it's not a prob. No good for the showbench though  

I'm not saying that folks should grow their spuds this way - it's gone another option  

[gobs]

You got to lose the grass to grow any good crop, if there aren't many weeds in it, I would be tempted just to rotavate it in for fastest, easiest thing, add a lot of manure for them.

The thing though is, which you might want to consider is to plant your underground crops in the other half, as grassy land will be full of all sorts of critters for a few years that used to feed on grass roots. Tubers and root crops would come out less damaged from the other half of your plot and you could prepare this part for different vegetables.

[Jen]

half of my plot looked like that last year..scarry...i rotavated it gave it a quick rake and stuck  the spuds in trenches with a bit of muck in the bottom, cleared the soil a treat, planting my roots there this year

[puravida]

thanks everyone - did you guys hire a rotivator for the job then???

[Jen]

Nope...was lucky enough to get one for a fiver at a farm sale, needed a bit of work £10 spent   worth every penny!!!

[digital_biscuit]

My dads best crop of spuds came from him simply turning the grass over a spade at a time and planting the spuds as and when he did that. The decomposing grass gave the spuds heaps of nutrients and like i said, the best crop he has ever had!! Just make sure you keep on top of any grass that grows back to the surface!!

[puravida]

So you dig along, take a spadeful of turf out, chuck a spud in and then ut the clod of turf back upside down on top of it???

[Aunt Sally]

I've used spuds on a couple of sites to breakup the ground without any preparation.  Skim the turfs off and stack them and break up the ground adding some well rotted manure, would be best.  But if you don't have enough time you can cover the grass with black plastic (or cardboard) and plant through it or even use the no dig straw method (capping with grass mowings)  Your crop won't be as good as with proper cultivation but you'll get a crop and the soil with get well broken up.

Beware of wireworms though. Always a problem after grass.

[Annie]

The turning the turf over method is called a Lazy bed,i`ve just checked on google putting in `gardens,lazy beds` and it comes up at the top of the page.Hope this helps.

[Angelah]

Another newbie here! I've got far too many spuds for the few beds I have ready or will be ready by the time I plant them, but we have a bad couch grass problem, would the lazy beds work with membrane then put down once they have sprouted, to reduce the growth of the couch grass? Then maybe 'earthing up' with straw?