One Potato, Two Potato

I am very pleased to say that all the potatoes "Swift", "Charlotte" and "Desiree" have all been planted at the allotment and are already showing their green leaves. The "Swift" variety which are first earlies should be ready by the end of May/beginning of June. I chose this variety just in case we get another bout of blight as we did last year, and they should be dug up and off site if we are unlucky again.

The "Charlotte" and "Desiree" varieties have been planted in a different way this year. Instead of digging deep holes and popping the potatoes in, we made a big trench, cut the potatoes in half making sure that there were "eyes" on each potato and placed them cut side down on the earth with some slug repellent and some growmore fertiliser in the trench. They were then covered up and well watered.

I have never planted potatoes in this way but my neighbour above me at the allotment (who incidentally rotivated the plot for me) helped us plant them and his potatoes always seem to do really well. We shall see what happens with this new way of planting and how successful it is.

Here is a picture of of the "Desiree" potatoes before they were planted.