Watering potatoes

The best thing about my allotment is that its 400 yards from my front door. The worst thing is that there is no water on it. As the soil is sandy this causes problems when we get a prolonged dry spell like last year.

So I have been digging in copious amounts of well rotted horse manure to improve the soil structure - yes I did test it for aminopropylid ( not sure if thats the correct name?)

The question I have is does anyone have any good ideas for how to keep potatoes watered. As they are earthed up watering the mound simply wets the top few inches of the soil - nowhere near the roots. Watering in the valleys between is very wasteful on water if you are having to carry it 400 yards.

So how do I target the water in the right place?

Regards, WG 

For my squash plants I sink an empty plastic bottle upside down with the bottom cut out and a small hole in the top to target watering. Works a treat! You might also want to think about water retention methods to reduce evaporation e.g. plastic sheeting; layer of leaf mulch. 

Ridge planted crops are watered in the valleys though. It's gonna run down anyway.

I understand, you have sand, however, potatoes are seldom watered. A lot of work this sounds. Have you tried mulching them after periods of prolonged rain?

we had to water on our sandy soil last year, those that didn't had hardly any to harvest, it was that bad
We had no rain for months so the mulching option wasn't an option either...it's abig problem on sand!
.....but all the manure you've added Weston grower should help a lot

I'm sad to hear that. I must admit, all my potatoes are on the dry side this year...

as it is so close to home could you not use a camping water barrel such as an aquaroll - some of 40 litres?

Or one of these?

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Planit-Products-Litre-Carrier-H2CDU12/dp/B0027U95UW

Oh yes, we've just started selling those at work. I thought about you allotmenteers (and builders) when I saw them.

That thing would be very handy in a barrel, filled with water, then toted to each plant.

I don't water anything on my plot, other than seed drills before sowing, and newly transplanted plants for 2-3 days until they have settled in. I make sure that the ground has well rotted manure dug in, and mulches applied where possible.

I too have sandy soil, and when I first took over my plot things didn't do terribly well due to the poor soil structure. Now 3 years later its much better. My spuds last season did incredibly well 2 spuds being large enough to feed 5 of us for a meal. In fact many were too large for baking unless we shared!!

In short feed the ground, making sure you do everything you can to help it retain moisture as others have said. try to keep watering to a minimum otherwise the plants rely on you rather than go looking themselves.