More Potatoes

Been very busy, loads more potatoes planted.

The potato bed has been dug over and planted with potatoes and covered the bed with weed sheeting. This can stay in place for a few weeks until the frosts have passed. More potatoes are in sacks. The planting list is now:

8 Swift (1st Earlies) in black flower pots 25/02/12
10 unknown (2nd Earlies) in large dog food sacks 25/02/12
30 Charlottes (salad) in white compost sacks, 2 per sack 01/04/12
29 King Edward (Maincrop) in the potato bed 01/04/12
11 Desiree (Maincrop) in the potato bed 06/04/12
5 Desiree (Maincrop) in red compost sacks 06/04/12

Potatoes all lined up so they can be easily covered

We had a severe frost a couple of days ago. To protect the spuds, I folded over the tops of all the potato sacks and covered the potato pots with old weed sheeting. Unfortunately the sheeting blew off some of the stems so they got frost damaged - this may have killed some of the potatoes.

I have now moved all the sacks and pots together into a double line and covered the whole lot with weed sheeting which is being held down with bricks at the sides and garden tools on top. They can be covered or uncovered very easily. I just need to watch out for frost and remember to cover them!

Potatoes covered to protect them from frost

When the weather warms up, the sacks and pots will be moved to the top of the garden - we don't get much sun at the top of the garden at this time of year, but the whole lot is nice and sunny in the summer.

The second photo shows all the potatoes covered up. In the background at the top is the potato bed, still sheeted over. This will be uncovered when the risk of frost has passed.