Starting out with our new plot last year, we put nearly half of it over to potatoes - this saved us having to do anything else with it, such as building beds, and it automatically prepared the soil for this year’s full use of the plot.
The upside was a summer full of potatoes for anyone who would have them, and us burying the rest - some 60kg - in a clamp.
This old school storage method of re-burying potatoes in a straw-lined hole in the ground keeps them in the proverbial cool, dark place with sufficient moisture to keep well into the winter and beyond. A method of building a clamp is described with pictures here: http://blog.mr-fothergills.co.uk/potato-clamps-storing-potatoes-vegetables-using-clamp/
So how is this news six months later? Well, we just collected the last bucket of potatoes from the clamp to turn into chips, pie mash and roast tatties.
Clamping produced mixed results for us last year. We were most successful with large Maris Piper, which were muddy but unblemished when retrieved. Not so with Red Duke of York, which either rotted or started sprouting, while smaller Kestrel and Maris Piper seemed popular winter homes for slugs and even some golden cyst worm. Given half the potatoes that went in the clamp were not in the best condition in the first place - scabbed rather than damaged - I estimate we lost between 10 and 20% to rot and slugs. In hindsight, I would have lined the bottom of the clamp with stones to drain away rain, used a lot more straw to eat off the soil and wildlife, and clamped higher above ground level rather than fully buried - but then who knew winter would be quite this wet.
Lessons learnt for next time, however our new and permanent plot layout won’t require this scale of effort again; our new potato beds take up barely 1/3 of last year’s space - and that’s fine, because nobody in this day and age needs to grow, and indeed store, this many potatoes.
The old tattie patch has now given way to two 4x1.2m bean beds, a chard cold frame, a raised greens and pumpkin patch, two new red currants, two gooseberries and lots of new raspberries.
On the other side of the plot, following out four-bed rotation, in 2020 we are going to try Charlottes, to be eaten fresh, Cara as main crop, and a little gem of a tasty yellow-fleshed wonder we ate and loved at a Blackisle restaurant - when we asked for the variety, we were presented with a small paper bag of seed potatoes and a shrug. They are happily chitting in the greenhouse - we will see!
The upside was a summer full of potatoes for anyone who would have them, and us burying the rest - some 60kg - in a clamp.
Clamping produced mixed results for us last year. We were most successful with large Maris Piper, which were muddy but unblemished when retrieved. Not so with Red Duke of York, which either rotted or started sprouting, while smaller Kestrel and Maris Piper seemed popular winter homes for slugs and even some golden cyst worm. Given half the potatoes that went in the clamp were not in the best condition in the first place - scabbed rather than damaged - I estimate we lost between 10 and 20% to rot and slugs. In hindsight, I would have lined the bottom of the clamp with stones to drain away rain, used a lot more straw to eat off the soil and wildlife, and clamped higher above ground level rather than fully buried - but then who knew winter would be quite this wet.
Lessons learnt for next time, however our new and permanent plot layout won’t require this scale of effort again; our new potato beds take up barely 1/3 of last year’s space - and that’s fine, because nobody in this day and age needs to grow, and indeed store, this many potatoes.
The old tattie patch has now given way to two 4x1.2m bean beds, a chard cold frame, a raised greens and pumpkin patch, two new red currants, two gooseberries and lots of new raspberries.
On the other side of the plot, following out four-bed rotation, in 2020 we are going to try Charlottes, to be eaten fresh, Cara as main crop, and a little gem of a tasty yellow-fleshed wonder we ate and loved at a Blackisle restaurant - when we asked for the variety, we were presented with a small paper bag of seed potatoes and a shrug. They are happily chitting in the greenhouse - we will see!
