Rob Smith is planting tubers to satisfy his urge to get growing!
I’m holding off seed-sowing so this satisfies my urge to get growing!
With January well behind us, it’s easy to get carried away and want to start sowing your veg seed now. However, I’m attempting to resist for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I’m trying to reduce the amount of electricity I use when gardening and lights and heaters in the colder months can use quite a lot. This isn’t just bad for the planet, my wallet isn’t that keen either! Secondly, as the natural light levels are low, seedlings can stretch easily, meaning you have inferior or weak plants which don’t perform to their best.
I won’t be sowing any seeds until around the end of February, and this should give me strong, healthy plants. To satisfy my urge to grow, I’ve started a few edible tubers in the greenhouse. I’ve already put my seed potatoes in egg boxes on the shed windowsill to chit (produce growing shoots). However, I was left with a few extra ‘Arran Pilot’ tubers, so decided to have a go at starting them now. I’ve filled a large container to a third full of compost, then planted two to three tubers and just covered them. Potato foliage is very susceptible to the cold and frost (a few of my plants got caught last year and the leaves go black), so I’m covering the top of the container with a double layer of horticultural fleece at night to prevent this. I’ll leave the containers in my unheated greenhouse, which should start them along and also give some extra protection, too.
As the plants grow, treat them the same as any container-grown potato – cover the new foliage with compost several times until the pot is full. By this time, there shouldn’t be any need for the fleece and I should be on the way to having an extraearly potato harvest. A handy tip to keep the plants as warm as possible is to keep the bag of compost you use to top the container up with (and a watering can full of water) in the greenhouse alongside the plants. This means they aren’t freezing cold when you come to use them, and the radiant heat from the warm compost stops the pot of potatoes freezing.