Digging Up Even More Spuds

Albert Bartlett Rooster - Should have been harvested Sept/Oct so a little late. Good that the water was still on as I put these in the mushroom trays and washed the mud off. Not going to be so luck next visit as the water is being turned off this week.   

Youngest daughter home this morning clearing and cleaning her bedroom so on the allotment by 8:20 am on a nice crisp 2 degrees C  Winter morning. Rain Yesterday so mostly damp and a dew on everything when I arrived. The greenhouse on Plot 1 has the wasp nest in it that I will have to deal with but when the wasps are dormant. For the moment with the Greenhouse in the shade and the automatic vent close and the wasps contained it was time to attack the Grapevine behind bed 5 and to start harvesting the potatoes.

Bed 4 & 5 last weekend 

Bed 4 & 5 This weekend, there is still about a 1/3rd of Bed 4 to be dug over and the spuds harvested the weed membrane has been left off so that Beautiful the Robin can enjoy the slug eggs and slugs. It appears the foxes have been disco dancing on the bed looking at all the paw prints in the soil

I nearly managed to clear Bed 5 of all it's spuds but ran out of time and gave up at 1pm there is a small area about 600 x 900 in the left bottom corner still to be dug and weeded. I have not seen so many couch grass and bind weeds in these beds since I took the plot over there were two trug loads of weeds that came out of this bed. 

As I don't stand on my beds the cohesion of the soil was all down to it being clay based and compaction due to the water and elimination of air. There was a part of me that was thinking of not growing spuds in the ground any more but with all the weeds that I have dug out and I do cover with planting membrane each year, I have decided that digging spuds out and removing what couch grass and bind weed I can is ultimately beneficial. 

What does amaze me is that bind weed likes to travel in the wood chip path on top of the weed membrane, however this does make it easy to remove and its extremely satisfying when you find and end and just pull it out of the path.