Potato bed preparation.

Today we forked over the potato bed for next season's growing. We first killed off all the residual stuff with the flame thrower then forked it in to add organics. Now we leave it for a couple of weeks to let the cold weather help to break down the clods. Frost helps with this process, but by exposing the soil to the cold, many pathogens and any useless insects are also likked off. We'll give it another forking in a weeks time and add a bit of fertiliser. This bed has been rested since February so is ready for action. We get our best spuds out of this bed.

Interesting the many ways of growing a vegetable. I don’t generally plant potatoes in a bed – unless it’s a new bed. I always plant a new bed with potatoes first if it's cool enough – always do well – have to keep hilling up though. I would like to try growing them in a hay bale garden one day to save work. Usually I just shovel up some soil and composted organics – so it’s no dig - sit in on newspaper – surround with spare bricks/besser blocks, wire even if I only have a couple of tubers - and cover with mulch of some sort – usually hay.

We plant here during the cooler months of course – DH planted some a month ago or so but it’s been warmer than usual – my roses think it's spring - we did have a cold spell back a bit - have to see what happens.

Never had a problem growing potatoes but I think it's because I always use fresh soil - don't know - very easy to grow - can recommend it

We grow all our own potatoes because commercially grown ones are sprayed with such toxic chemicals that potato farmers around here won't even eat their own but grow for their households in their gardens. We rotate through the 5 beds - this gives us a chance to get a deep dig going. Last year, because we only used a small bed - 3 m x 1.5, we harvested just under 100kg. This coming year we will be planting in a 8 m x 2 bed, probably using about 6 m so should double up. I'll post progress. At present we are waiting on a bit of rain to settle the soil, then we'll add a bit of fertiliser and dig again and make the trenches. Digging is essential in our clay soil although this bed has been well worked. I pulled out a row of Italian parsley from this bed and it had root like parsnips!

Here's a picture of the first digging for potatoes. Once any weed seeds emerge we will get rid of them and give it another light forking, and a final one will the tiller to create a good crumble, then form trenches to plant the potatoes in. We have reinforced the edges with untreated pine and will be extending the concrete path between the veggie bed and the rose bed which is on top of the retaining wall.