[Smudgeboy]

Hi all

I planted about 15 Desiree spuds in a little row of spare earth by my back garden wall in March.

I now have about 15 plants between five and ten inches high, looking extremely leafy and healthy - not bad considering I just chucked 'em in the ground and left 'em for a coupla months!

Trouble is, I don't know what to do next - I have no idea when I should start earthing up (and what I should earth up) or when I should think about feeding, harvesting etc.

From reading the slug posts, I'm tempted to make a dose of nematodes the next action.

Any thoughts or advice?

[Aidy]

Earth them up to the top of the leaves leaving around a couple of inches showing, by earthing up we mean with soil or compost. slugs generally arent a problem as they feed on other things during the summer, they only become a nightmare in the autumn when they bury themselfs down in the ground and then feed on the tubers. Feeding again is something I tend not to do unless thing get bad, when I plant mine I make a bed of shredded paper then put loads of well rotted manure and drop the spuds on that, leave the ground flat and when they show I put another layer of rotted compost and then earth up, wait for the annual weeds to germinate carefully knock the earth back and re-earth up and leave, I only water if it gets really dry. I am sure other people have other methods.

[David.]

When you can't physically earth up any more, put newspaper, etc. between the rows (if wetted helps prevent being blown away) and cover it with straw (over the plants if a frost is forecast!). Another reason to collect stable straw as well as horse poo (they only burn it otherwise).