Having your own home-grown Christmas Day spuds is a dream for many growers. Who doesn’t want to make their Christmas meal that little bit more special by including some homegrown produce? When you know what you are doing, then it is also quite simple to achieve, so let me show you how. Growing Xmas Spuds…
Potato berries are a natural part of the potato plant’s life cycle. These small, green fruits resemble cherry tomatoes and contain up to 300 true potato seeds. However, they are unsuitable for consumption as they contain the toxic alkaloid solanine. Despite their toxicity, potato berries can be useful to gardeners and farmers. These seeds are…
This is one of those gardening things that some people do while others will have never even heard of. Cutting your seed potatoes in half to get extra seed potatoes. The premise is simple enough: you cut your seed potato in half before planting, doubling the number of plants you get. But does this work?…
With all root crops, it can be a struggle to know when they are truly ready, and potatoes are no expectation to this. How do you know whether your spuds are ready or not when they are buried underground? As it turns out, there are a few tricks to know when the time is right,…
Have you noticed your potatoes starting to flower? If so, then you need to remove them, let me explain. Potato Flowers Potato flowers are beautiful; there is no getting away from that. But while they are nice to look at, you should still be removing them, ideally before they even get a chance to flower….
If you are looking for a really cheap way of growing potatoes, then why not try buckets? These regular builders buckets are really cheap, I picked these up for less than £1 each, but they are available for even less if you shop around. What’s more, with a little modification, they make the perfect container…
Potatoes are a staple of allotment plots up and down the country. But how do you maximise your harvest and grow the best spuds? Potato Types The first place to start is with the different types of seed potatoes available. This can seem confusing at first, but once you understand it, then it’s quite straightforward….
Many people can be put off growing potatoes, thinking they need a lot of room to grow them successfully. I admit I used to think like this and dedicated one of my four beds at the allotment to just growing potatoes. But after trying potatoes in tubs and other small containers, I realised that this…
Do you have a shady spot in the garden and want to know if potatoes will work in it? Well, that is precisely the dilemma I faced, so I thought I would test it and find out, so let’s have a look and see how I got on! Read on to find out how I…
Want to use chicken manure to fertilise your potatoes but you are not sure whether it is a good idea or not? Let’s have a look and find out if chicken manure is good for potatoes. Chicken manure is typically bought by gardeners in a dried pelleted form, it is a relatively cheap fertiliser that…
If you have just successfully grown potatoes in bags/pots/containers then firstly, congratulations I hope you enjoy your homegrown spuds, second, you will want to know what to do with all that compost. If you throw it away then those potatoes start to get really expensive, but worry not, there are a tonne of useful jobs…
Growing some potatoes and can’t wait to get your hounds on your bountiful harvest? But just how big is this harvest going to be? How many potatoes can you expect per plant? Let’s have a look and find out. How Many Potatoes Per Plant? The answer is a classic “it depends” and what it really…
Our vegetable gardens are constantly changing and evolving, it is one of the things that makes them so exciting. Summer crops follow spring crops and so on and so forth, but what should follow your potato harvest? This will depend a lot on what potatoes we are talking about, are they first earlies, early, or…
Got a spare patch in the vegetable garden that needs filling and wondering if potatoes will work or is it possibly a little late for them? Can you plant potatoes in July? let’s have a look and find out. Can I Plant Potatoes In July? Nicola potatoes are one of my favourites for growing at…
Potatoes are an easy crop to grow and provide a lot of calories, as such they would be a great crop to grow all year round. But is this possible in the UK? Can you grow potatoes all year round? let’s have a look and find out. Can You Grow Potatoes All Year Round In…