Tag Archives: Potatoes

North London potato update and more!

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Following on to our potato post the other day, here’s how Debby H‘s in north London are doing. As she said “They were supposed to be earlies, but I think we planted them too early as they took nearly two months to show any shoots. However, in the past week, they have shot up!” They are looking great, we always think if you can protect the plants from the frosts (under fleece or plastic), it’s worth getting them in early as you can (within reason of course).

She also sent us a picture of one of her tomatoes (above), which is looking well healthy. Also, a couple of pots of dwarf sunflowers and the two right at the bottom what we think are a phormium tenax, which is about to flower! Thanks for that Debby, do keep us updated as we do love those reports from the other side of the Thames.

Potatoes’ progress

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We put some spuds in early this year and covered them with a bit of plastic and fleece if the nights got cold. They are coming on great now and we’ll start earthing them up as well so we don’t get any green potatoes. (Above) The bed on the left are the spuds and the raised bed to the right of that are a couple of chilli plants and some Egyptian onions.

Below, another raised bed that’s a bit full to the brim, perhaps too full?

How are everyone else’s spuds doing?

Getting ahead of it all

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Of late we’ve had some lovely days and then days of greyness and a little rain. Even if we don’t, the garden likes it and is starting to bolt ahead. The clematis which has taken a few years to establish itself is now doing well (above).

We were thinking had we put the potatoes in too early, but we cover them at night (and on cold days) with fleece and left over plastic and they seem to be doing alright. We will start earthing them up as we go along, as there’s nothing as bad as pulling up your potatoes and finding a load of green ones. We know that’s a long way off yet but it’s good to plan and prepare! Fingers crossed there’s no surprise frosts to come.

Pictures from Kyiv

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Cheers to Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv for sending us some pictures a fortnight or so which we’ve only got around to posting now. The first is how his good mate Sergiy (UT3UFD)‘s indoor banana plant is doing (above) and as you can it’s looking healthy! Love to know how his date palm is getting on.

And here’s a nice picture of how Wlad’s Dill and Potatoes make a good combination in the same container. We’ve sowed some Dill here a few years ago and actually got it to grow but didn’t really do anything with it sadly as we weren’t into the herb at the time but the Dill above is looking healthy. More on how to grow Dill here. Cheers for the pictures Wlad.

Our friends in Kyiv

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A big thanks as always to our good friend Wlad (US7IGN) in Kyiv for sending us some more excellent pictures. The first is his Dill seedlings (above) that look like they’re doing very well.

Wlad also wrote of the other plants he started off as well “The garlic also remained small for a long time, but then simply dried out” and his potato plant is growing but seems to have stood still for a while (pics above).

It’s funny as we’re having problems on some of the seedlings on our windowsill too, we’ve got some chilli and tomato seedlings and they are not doing much else after growing their seed leaves and one set of a normal leaf. There looks like there’s some sort of greenfly about but they don’t seem to be bothering any of the other sunflower seedlings or sweet peas. Any ideas?

As for his Wlad’s good mate Sergiy (UT3UFD) his banana is doing very well! It looks well healthy and so does his date palm (above). Great stuff!

We always think of Sergiy’s plant when we pass the banana plant that is in a front garden in SE23. We have no idea if bananas are supposed to survive the british weather but this one seems to! Cheers again to Wlad and Sergiy for the pics and we look forward to seeing more.

Radio (and Gardening) connects us all!

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Thanks to Wlad (US7IGN) from Ukraine for getting in touch this week with some pics of his germinating dill seeds and sprouting garlic and potatoes that are all looking healthy. For some reason the old trick of cutting up seed potatoes in two so you can have two potato plants instead of one just came to mind. We are sure it was a reader of the blog who sent us that tip many moons ago.

His good friend Sergiy (UT3UFD) has now started off a date palm and he’s also got that great looking banana plant and the both are growing well. Brilliant stuff and good to hear from you Wlad, keep us up to date how the plants are getting on!

We didn’t sow that

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One plant we always have in the garden mainly through self seeding (thus being a volunteer plant) is the good herb borage. It’s great for the bees and its leaves can be thrown into the comfrey liquid bucket adding some extra goodness into the mix. More on its uses here.

Also if you remember we were a bit fed up of accidently leaving in potatoes when harvesting them and they regrow the year after leaving spuds where you don’t want spuds. One idea we were told about to get around this problem is growing them in a large pot, various containers and even plastic bags so all you have to do is tip the spuds and soil out in one easy action. Here’s one doing well (above) in a green shopping bag with lots of drainage holes in the bottom. Where there’s a will there’s a way as they say.

We’re pushing the (seed) envelope again

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The shoots are coming through from one of the chitted seed spuds we planted in a big pot in a Monty Don style. We’ll stick an old jam jar on the top as soon as we’ve covered it with some more soil as you never know it’s still frost season and it has been cold in the mornings here.

Talk about being keen, we’ve even stuck a tomato plant outside (talk about a gardening sin of sins) after a quick harden off (keeping it outside during the day and bringing it back in at night) over the last few days so it could get used to the weather outdoors rather than the warmth of the kitchen windowsill.

We covered it with a small plastic cloche that we found in the street years ago and then covered that with another larger plastic cloche. We’ve been influenced by the great Bob Flowerdew there as we reckon that’s the sort of thing he may do. Looks a bit mad but why not as they say. It may be too much for the poor plant but we’ll take either one or all of the protection off when we get a warm day. It’s all about giving it a go and getting one step ahead.

Are we there yet?

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We’ve been away for a few days to sunny Sudbury where the only stress was making sure a couple of cats, the garden birds and the guest ducks were fed and cat treats administered. It was nice to get away for a break after the last couple of years of the on and off madness of lockdown.

When we returned, the garden at home had certainly grown even after 5 days. The spuds we put in early (in February under cover here) were looking well happy and flowering like anything and so was the courgette seedling we put in a big pot (above). One tip, don’t even consider consuming the fruits that may appear on the potato plant after flowering as you’ll certainly keel over. This is how one website put it “…if you are feeling adventurous, you could try tasting a ripe berry, but don’t swallow it unless your health insurance is paid up.” We always knock them off if we see them growing just to be on the safe side.

Now it’s back to that age old “When do we pull the spuds up?” conundrum. It’s all confusing, as far as we can remember these were Golden Wonder maincrop potatoes which you supposed harvest in August/September, but we put them in earlier than they should have been so that’ll make a difference won’t it? If you want to find out more, there’s a good article about the various potato types explained on the Gardener’s World website here.

We usually wait until the flowers and foliage have well died down before we go in with a fork (remembering what Joe Maiden used to say about going in a few times so nothing is left in the ground. “Volunteer” potatoes can muck up an OCD laid out vegetable bed the year after if not) but there’s nothing stopping the impatient digging around in the compost earlier seeing if there’s anything small to harvest. If you’ve got raised beds filled with general purpose compost it shouldn’t take much effort get in there with a trowel and be like a careful archaeologist. If there’s nothing of a decent size just cover them back up and let them get on with it. We’ve read online some people enjoy spuds when they’re marble sized, each to their own we say.

Another thing we actually got around to doing was “side shooting” our tomato plants. This is simply taking out the side shoots that appear between the leaf joint (making sure they’re not the fruit bearing trusses that grow from the stem not on the junction between leaf and stem). The whole idea of doing this, is the plant will put all of its energy into making the fruit rather than into making leaves. If you have a butchers at this video below though the great Bob Flowerdew suggests growing Tomatoes on a couple of main stems. We love the bit that starts at 2.25 “I thought you were a good gardener?”

But the big question here isn’t if he’s a good gardener or not, it’s is he a reggae lover or a Kraftwerk fan or both, we need to know! If anybody knows please tell us.

The reggae gardening connection

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It was nice to be out and about this afternoon after the last couple of years of isolation. Today’s treat was a bus trip to Deptford for the Lewisham Soundsystem Trail. Rather than roam about the various events going on, most of the afternoon was spent in The Albany’s back garden with Dennis Bovell and friends (including the great Gladdy Wax, Dub Vendor All Stars, Pappa Face and Gaffa Blue). Some great tunes, good vibes and sunshine with a community garden as a background. There were some great ideas on show including carrots in plastic dustbins, ingenious stuff.

Things are on fire so to speak  in our garden too, the risk we took with the early planting of the seed potatoes has paid off. There’s flowers a go-go and it’s not even June yet. Now we’ll be waiting for the foliage to die down for some fresher than fresh new potatoes.

And as for those foxgloves, they’re on a triffid-like tip and we’re not going to complain.

And we’re not complaining about this tune either, it’s a nice chilled Sunday evening affair  from Arutani called Wasting Time. Tune in and really drop out to a tune with a Laut & Luise connection.