[PennyS]

Hello All

I've been surveying all the digging I have yet to do and a lazy thought occurred to me.

I started my lotty last August - it was just grazing land before.  The area that will be my potato patch this year has been under heavy duty plant-through matting since August and the grass/couch grass underneath is almost all dead now.

I did wonder whether I could save myself some digging this season in that area, if I peeled back the matting, lifted off all the dead grass, put the matting back and just planted the potatoes through slits with a bulb planter. 

Do you reckon this might work or do I need to dig this whole area too before planting?  (It's about 6m x 4m).

That would mean I could concentrate on the other areas that need digging first.

Penny 

[DavidT]

Penny, if you want the best out of your ground then you MUST put the work in.  :nowink:You will be surprised how satisfying it is to see a clean, well dug plot.

[peapod]

Well said david

And when you dig those big spuds up, its like prospecting and then finding gold.

Ok not that big a deal, but its a great feeling 

[PennyS]

Ah well it was a nice thought, I've got soooo much digging to be done.  At least the couch grass has probably been beaten into submission by now 

[DavidT]

Re the couch grass, don`t you believe it.

[bigben]

Penny I am in a similar position - I took over a really overgrown allotment at the start of last month. It has not been tended for 3 years and is covered with high brambles - I chopped half the plot down to ground level but then found it is thick with bind weed and couch grass roots. For me to dig and clear half my plot really well before it becomes planting time is probably beyond me. I plan to plant spuds thru weed fabric which will hopefully give me a bit of crop from that area and allow me to do a thorough job elswhere. Then when I come to dig up the spuds I can clear the roots as well.

My site has a 50% rule in the first year so unless I am cultivating 50% of the plot in the first year I will be evicted. I am sure I will be able to sort this by the end of the season but see no harm in doing the lazy spud trick and even if the yield is very poor it does allow me to concentrate my energies elswhere while making sure I am not evicted for not getting 50% of the plot cultivated.

 My advice would be to dig it well if you have the time to, however another year under cover might help you further weaken the couch grass which I am sure will not be beaten into submission yet. Good luck

[GrannieAnnie]

Can I muscle in with the opposite opinion please?  I don't know if you are wanting to do it that way because you have more ground than you can cope with at the moment, or for any other reason, but a few years back, I did try planting under terram.  I got so tired with the digging, which happens often, that I did what you mentioned.  I spread my terram all over the area I was going to plant, cut little crosses in it and dug a hole with a bulb planter.  put in spud watered when needed and waited.

Result, I got a fair crop that I was pleased with.  the only 2 downsides were that where I forgot to cover the cross with earth, some light got onto the tubers nearest and some had green patches on because of the light, and I had more slugs feasting on my potatoes than usual!

Otherwise they were fine

[Janeymiddlewife]

I grew butternut squash through weed membrane last year and am just digging it all over for spuds this year. Like you I wanted to have most of the plot cultivated, especially after I received "the letter"  Turned out it was meant for my neighbour, whose plot hasn't been worked since last march now. I got a smallish harvest, but due more to me not stopping them early enough and not feeding enough early on. Also got a nice crop of cucumbers from the same patch.

[zazen999]

Personally, I'd take the matting off; pull out the couch grass that you can, fork it over roughly, put cardboard down and plant through that using a bulb planter. You could put the matting back down over it or use it somewhere else, but I find that the cardboard starts to rot down and adds organic material whereas the fabric doesn't. This really helps when you come to dig the potatoes up as it gets dug in.

Or, take the matting off, pull couchgrass off and grow the potatoes in old compost bags, on top of the soil - which also helps supress couch grass. Check out Tattie Man's videos about digging in bags; you could perhaps do half and half so that you don't have to dig too much at the end of the season.

[PennyS]

Can I muscle in with the opposite opinion please?  I don't know if you are wanting to do it that way because you have more ground than you can cope with at the moment, or for any other reason, but a few years back, I did try planting under terram.  I got so tired with the digging, which happens often, that I did what you mentioned.  I spread my terram all over the area I was going to plant, cut little crosses in it and dug a hole with a bulb planter.  put in spud watered when needed and waited.

Result, I got a fair crop that I was pleased with.  the only 2 downsides were that where I forgot to cover the cross with earth, some light got onto the tubers nearest and some had green patches on because of the light, and I had more slugs feasting on my potatoes than usual!

Otherwise they were fine

Thanks everyone.  
I think I'll see how things go, I'll dig the other areas in preference and if I have time to do the potato area I'll dig that or some or all of it, otherwise I'll try to plant through (and thanks for the tip about the earth GrannyAnnie!) and see what results!

[harry]

We got our allotment in january and yesterday dug about a third of it for the spuds. It is satisfying to stand back and look at a freshley dug plot. Now for the other 2/3rds

[thearaig]

I tried a lazy approach last year. For various reasons, I just couldnt find the time to prepare the ground for my spuds so I tried making just sricking a spade in the ground, making a slit and shoving the spud in. This was ground that wasnt too compact, having had pigs on it a couple of years before. There was a limited amount of growth and we did get a few of the first earlies (swift) but for the rest... we're still waiting. Couldn't weed cos we didnt know where the spuds were and there was nothing much to earth up.

Did you know that Lidl do frozen chips for 50p a kilo?

[PennyS]

Well it looks like I won'[t get the chance to be lazy  
I tried to see whether a bulb planter would go in today, and the area where my potatoes are going is so full of stones I had no chance.

So I peeled back the black matting and dug over enough to get my first earlies in.  There was a lot of tough couch grass there despite it being under matting since August. 

I'll have to carry on digging for the second earlies and maincrops over the next few weeks (snow and frost permitting   ).

I removed buckets and buckets of stones, and there are still tons in there.  I will go over the whole area in the autumn and remove more stones.

[PAULW]

PENNY just a point why didn't you dig the plot last August then cover it with the black matting, 8 months pondering then a panic as the growing season arrives