[jonotaylor]

Does anyone not chit potatoes?  I was wondering whether anyone just planted their seed potatoes without chitting and whether that impacted overall yield / potato size in your experience?

[JayG]

I think the jury is still out on this one; common sense would suggest that planting them with new shoots already developing allows them to "hit the ground running" but others say it doesn't make much difference.

One thing's for sure; the way the retailers are geared up for selling seed potatoes from January onwards makes it difficult not to have to chit them (or risk not getting the choice and quality you want.) 

[mumofstig]

I think I read that it makes no difference to main crop, but does make a difference for early, earlies, if that makes sense 

[nipper31]

1.  I don't water anything that is not in a pot, no need in Manchester - the rain is always torrential!

2.  I do regular weeding.  Otherwise my plot would be so overgrown I would get the dreaded letter...

3.  I do earth-up potatoes. 

4.  I don't plant potatoes in trenches I just make a hole with a bulb planter and drop the seed potato in.

5.  I do 'chit' sweetcorn.

[diggerjoe]

I watered the courgettes and squashes as being on raised  areas they did suffer in the heat but I have found that watering has affected the yield of some of my potatoes. The run off from the raised squash and courgette beds went onto the potatoes down one side of the plot there are not more of these per plant but also bigger potatoes than  the unwatered ones. I hedge my bets and trench then plant with bulb planter and only earth up once. I am going to dig as little as possible this year as for the first year the ground is now good and crumbly. As to letting OH know about my seed stash  no way.

[gimli]

i do water tomatoes and sweetcorn and brussels.
i do earth up.
and i do weed as much as possible.
but i dont worry about watering if i can not get.

[Lottie Mary]

1.  I don't water anything that is not in a pot, no need in Manchester - the rain is always torrential!

2.  I do regular weeding.  Otherwise my plot would be so overgrown I would get the dreaded letter...

3.  I do earth-up potatoes. 

4.  I don't plant potatoes in trenches I just make a hole with a bulb planter and drop the seed potato in.

5.  I do 'chit' sweetcorn.

Sorry - I'm relatively new to the whole veggie gardening experience - but how do you 'chit' sweetcorn?  I've never heard of this before.

[DD.]

Have a look at this:

Chitting Sweetcorn

[Trillium]

On the no watering issue, I think there's an assumption that you have good tilth in your soil which will hold the water and allow the roots to go deep. Not everyone is this lucky. Clay soil is very difficult for young roots to penetrate so they need a bit of watering at first to give them a chance and then you can ease off watering. Sandy soils have their own problems. You can't tar every garden with the same lack of watering can/hose. Particularly if you've inherited a plot that was previously well tended for many years.

As for not earthing up potatoes, it seems no matter how deep I plant my potatoes, they still like to grow upward and pop out of the soil. I prefer to live, so yes, I hill them up. Not a task I love to do but necessary if I expect edible potatoes. Also, some varieties continue to put out new spuds all along their growing stalk so there's no alternative but to continue to earth up.

In my warmer summer climate I have no need to chit sweetcorn, but a lot of UKrs find it necessary in many cooler areas in order to get an edible harvest. Again, your area's climate is not everyone elses so generalizations in chit or not chit really are invalid.

Weeding is a must in allotments. Period. Unless you really want to be kicked out. Weeding in my home garden is necessary because I know for a fact that my yield is superior when I do weed (non competition from hardier weed roots) than if I don't. I grow to feed my family, not play at gardening when the mood strikes me. I'm always amazed at just how many types of weed seeds blow into my garden and try to take over. I constantly battle bindweed which would strangle the whole garden within a month if left unchecked. Glyphosphate is only a partial answer and its cost can quickly add up if done rather than simple hoeing or digging out of roots. 

[DD.]

Well put, Trillium.

Don't think there's much you can add to that!

[aelf]

My soil is very sandy and free-draining. I have no choice but to water. I am improving the organic content as quick as I can but it's a long process.

I earth up the spuds for the reasons given by Trillium

No weeding? ha! If I didn't weed then within 2 months my plot would revert back to the impenetrable jungle of nettles, ground elder and wild comphrey that it was when I took it on.

Might work for you but sadly, not for me. 

[Nobbie]

I was able to try an experiment this year on the effects of watering on onions and potatoes. I moved from Hertfordshire to Cheshire in April and left spuds and onions in the ground. Meanwhile I planted more spuds and onions in my new allotment.

Result:

non watered onions in Herts were all tiny when I went to check. Spuds were hardly worth digging. Meanwhile, in Cheshire the spuds have been huge (upto 2lbs) and the onion crop has been great.

Simply put, I can get away with no watering up in Cheshire because of the amount of rain we get (even in a drought ) whereas in Herts I got so little rain that without watering, most crops would fail.

[DD.]

Thanks Nobbie - better update your location in your profile!

[jonotaylor]

In case it's useful, these were the plots I've had with no-watering success:

Allotment 1: Clay, Oxfordshire weather, previously derelict plot (8 ft brambles removed before starting).  This is where I got the original no watering advice.

Allotment 2: Cheshire, 8" sandy top-soil on a lower bed of clay, previously a grass paddock, poor quality soil (poor soil structure).


But I was hoping the focus would not just be on the things 'I' don't do.  Does anyone have any tips that don't conform to the normal advice, based on experience of having personally tried more than one technique....like Nobbie's experiment, but sadly I got different results :-).  Something like the "Easy Care Pruning" Rose pruning experiment that showed that using a hedge clipper was as effective as the standard previously held pruning advice.

[Starling]

I think a lot of growing is down to luck, as my plants don't seem to read the same books I do.
I have pinched out some tomato side shoots and not others of the same variety and it doesn't seem to make much differnece to yields, so I won't bother in future.

I have grown sweetcorn unchitted in 4"pots on the window sill before, then put it in the garden (still in pots) when it got to tall for the window, the cobs (1/2 per plant) got infested with earwigs so I threw the plants away, someone has since told me this is a sign they are ripe.
 I am sure now I know sweetcorn cannot be grown in a 4" pot it probably won't work again.  This year it went unchitted into loo rolls with 100% germination and is planted in a block on the allotment as I read rows don't work.
Weeding too I have been a bit lax on and handweeded the onions and garlic when I couldn't see any soil, both have grown bigger than my fist, but maybe I was just lucky.