planting potatoes!

I'm using a mish-mash of techniques - a little bit John Jeavons' How to Grow More... and a little bit no-dig gardening technique.

I'm using Jeavons' recommendations for spacing (9inches offset - not in rows), but I'm not digging them into the ground - I pulled the mulch layer back off the earth, scratched a little hole in the surface of the earth, sat the potato in and covered it back up with mulch again.


Then I layered 2 wheelbarrow loads of lovely aged compost onto the top of it to keep them nice and dark and bob's your uncle.

Hopefully they will like this treatment and we'll have new potatoes in early to mid January - they're 'karaka' potatoes and are 2nd earlies - so 80 to 90 days to maturity. Allegedly. I've never grown tatties before so I'm hoping they'll be fine.

Dad has grown them every year for ever and he reckons they'll be great, so I'll trust in experience, the elements and Providence.