Easter Sunday Planting Spuds

As my eldest daughter Emma was coming over to keep her mum company and to cook the Sunday Roast, I had already cooked off the roast beef and peeled the potatoes, plus sorted out the honey roast parsnips & Yorkshire pud for her. I managed a morning visit to Mill Green to try and get some spuds in the ground, I took the Charlottes with me for the SoilFixer Tests and a number of buckets with lids of Coir that were hydrated yesterday in readiness, however with the warnings of a frost and a general lack of room in the greenhouse and the growhouse being out of action and needing rebuilding I decided that that can wait until the end of the month when we should be frost free and that the order of the day was to get some spuds in the ground and to clear bed 5

Bed 5 was the strawberry bed and I have given up on trying to grow strawberries until I have the fruit cages up at Spencer Road, and grow them on elevated troughs and can protect them from birds, ants & vermin. Bed 5 was very weedy but it got cleared during the morning.

I saved egg sized potatoes from the varieties I grew last year and decided to see how well they produced this year. I will buy new seed potatoes next year, but it's got to be worth a go.

Sarpo Blue Danube – Main Crop -  unusual blue skinned variety with strong resistance to tuber blight.  The perfect roastie! went onto Bed 9, as usual I augured a hole but this year used the excellent compost fro Dalek 2 to line the bottom of the bore and fill to the top and not B&Q verve . I'm hoping the goodness in the compost will assist in the growth of the spuds. A layer of coffee grounds was sprinkled on top of the bore as a fertiliser and slug deterrent.

Sarpo Kifli – Second Early - Blight resistant, white skinned second early crop,  Waxy potato with a new potato flavour all year round went into half of bed 8, I will need to sow the other half of bed 8 on another visit as I ran out of time and had to go home at 2:00 for my Sunday Roast dinner.

I have two more trays of spuds that are destined for beds 5 & 7 on future weekend visits to Mill Green.