After chitting away on top of my fridge for nearly a month it was time to put the tatties in the ground. The weather had been glorious all weekend and sun is forecast for the rest of the week, my soil is also nice and dry making it perfect for potato planting 🙂
The potatoes that I have chosen are called International Kidney and they are an early, salad potato (formerly known elsewhere as Jersey Royals) Now I’m taking a small risk with this variety simply because I don’t know anyone who has actually grown them, I haven’t even read any reviews regarding International Kidney potatoes. However I do love Jersey Royals and I think its a risk worth taking and if it works then great (and if its a failure then I will spread the word!) Now I do know that Jersey royals are grown on a slight slope with direct sunlight, I don’t have a hill but my plot does get the sun all day long so fingers crossed that they grow happily in Hampshire. I planted three rows of this variety, 10cm deep, 30cm apart and 60cm between rows. I was able to plant 9 potatoes per row so that makes 27 potato plants overall and they will hopefully be ready for harvesting between June and July.
In other news I just thought I would update everyone on the other crops still growing on plot 15C. The garlic is still growing, although I have a funny feeling that nothing is growing underneath and the tips of the leaves are still yellow. I might actually have to read up on garlic one evening! The broad beans that I planted back in November are going really great, they are over a foot tall now and one of my jobs this weekend is to put some supports in because they are currently having a growth spurt with all this sunshine we are having lately. I also planted some bulbs last year and the daffodils are on the verge of flowering, Spring is just around the corner after all 🙂
3 thoughts on “Potato planting”
If you take a look at my Sneak harvest video from last year, those ones are international Kidney as well. They did very well for me in a very short season.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQdQNAWCLRg
If you track the videos back you can see when I planted them and how they did. Remember this was SUmmer rather than Spring so I had a lot of catching up to do.
I have read in my companion planting books that legumes and allium should not be planted close together as they can stunt each other’s growth. However, I have seen countless posts by people who say they have seen no negative effects so really not sure what is going on with your garlic
I read about this too last night and wondered the exact same thing! I only planted both 2 months apart so I think this is the problem, and here I was trying to fit things in nicely. Hopefully I’ll learn more as the years go on :S