Backyard Farming Forum
Bringing food production home

Spuds sprouted

Laid some leaky pipe irrigation

Mulched with hay

finger crossed I'll get a good crop

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Why did the chicken cross the road? ... To have her motives questioned.

Looks promising to me Simo! Do you add chemical fertilisers or stay with the organics?

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no chemical fertiliser just cow, horse and chook poo, gunna get me some sheep poo soon too!

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Why did the chicken cross the road? ... To have her motives questioned.

What's the trench of water for if you have soaker irrigation?

Laid some leaky pipe irrigation

The water trench is filled by rainwater only as it is the bottom of the wicking bed, in my climate we may not get enough rain to fill it permenantly so the soaker irrigation is a more water efficient form of watering for the dry spells.

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Why did the chicken cross the road? ... To have her motives questioned.

I have hilled up the spuds with hay twice now, not sure if I am doing it right I just pack thick biscuits of hay around the stems to keep the light off them so that hopefully they will send out more tubers. We will see.





Also I never knew potatoes had flowers, Pretty huh?

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Why did the chicken cross the road? ... To have her motives questioned.

Looks good Simo..... maybe I would break up the biscuits a bit to allow the roots thru and thats where the new spuds will form

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If you think you can,
If you think you can't,
Either will be true.
Henry Ford

Hey Simo

I also use Leeaky hose. I got 100 metres years ago and don't use it anywhere much as I should, but keep meaning to get it set up properly. I was interested to see how you laid it as I've only ever laid in a straight line because it should, if laid correctly, keep a good area either side of the hose damp.

In term of the spuds in hay - I will bhe interested to see how you go. I tried this for several years and never got good yields. I ended up going back to dirt and then this year is the first time I've used the recommended trenching and hilling method in the dirt and I've got by far the best harvest ever.

Because you ahve actually planed the spuds in the dirt, I expect you will do okay. But it will be interesting to see how much of your yield comes out of the dirt and how much comes from the hay. Please keep us posted.

We had the same experience VB, all the potatoes we harvested came out of the ground anyway, despite the plants growing quite tall with the straw mounding up. It was very disappointing

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Peasants

If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need.
Cicero

our Aquaponics thread
https://www.facebook.com/mccarthy.park
http://www.mccarthypark.com.au

Here are some pick of my potato yeild for the year, each bucket is what was produced from 2kg of seed potatoes Delaware and Ruby Lou.




I am storing them covered in dirt so they last longer, anyone else do this and how well does it work?

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Why did the chicken cross the road? ... To have her motives questioned.

Awesome harvest of spuds simo ....I don't know about the store in dirt thing, won;t they sprout again?....I have read that in the colder countries some people make a clamp which stores the tubers outside in the dirt with straw....but that is in cold places (snow)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storage_clamp

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I shall wait for the Meek......Then take it from them


http://backyardaquaponics.com/forum/vie ... =18&t=8219

Fantastic

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Peasants

If you have a garden and a library you have everything you need.
Cicero

our Aquaponics thread
https://www.facebook.com/mccarthy.park
http://www.mccarthypark.com.au

I find spuds store best in cold dark conditions, in a jute bag off concrete, so no moisture gets to them.
Also occassionaly tip them out and look for rotten ones, will send them all off.
Never store any with cuts or marks.
Exact opposite to pumpkins, they like sunlite and warm conditions.

As for growing in straw, the only times it has worked for me is if the straw is well rotted down.

_________________
If you think you can,
If you think you can't,
Either will be true.
Henry Ford

Nice one Simo, I had a better harvest than lst year as well on my second crop that we also dug out this week, no pics though sorry .