Tatie Planting Time

For a lot of you, it's time to start thinking about planting potatoes. It's a little early here yet, but since there's been a bit of discussion about growing potatoes, I thought I'd share with you a great way of growing them without any back-breaking digging.

1. Choose your patch of ground and cover it liberally with newspapers.
2. Place potatoes on top of the paper at about 30cm or 12in apart in a grid.
3. Cover with a layer of mulch or hay (lucerne hay is best if it's not too expensive). On top of the mulch / hay, place liberal amounts of blood and bone, well rotted animal manures and/or compost. Water the lot in well.
4. Add more hay and more fertilisers / manures, watering after each addition. You want the pile to be moist throughout, but not sodden.
5. When you reach a height of about 60cm, finish off with a layer of mulch or hay.
6. Note: you can add shredded paper and lawn clippings in with your hay if you like.

The advantages of this technique are:

• no digging!
• when the potatoes are ready, you just lift up the layer of mulch and pick them up
• you are left with an area ready to dig over and plant with new things
• you end up with a heap of semi-composted hay, which is a great addition to the garden

The disadvantages are:

• the hay can be expensive
• you may need to top up the hay during the growing season, so the potatoes do not get exposed to light
• it takes a reasonable sized patch of ground (compared with potato condos)

Happy planting!

love and light
naturewitch