Garden Club - Planting Up the Potatoes

The early potatoes are ready to plant today. I was able to seed swap with a neighbour earlier this month I don't have a massive space for the potatoes in my garden, but I do want to grow some as many of you are also interested in growing these easy seeds. Many of us have opted to to use potato grow bags because of the space we have.

I first started to use this method of growing potatoes when I was working full-time in school, up until then I had always grown potatoes in the ground at my allotment. My class at the time was very keep to grow all sorts of vegetables but the Headteacher would not let us have a very big space. Growing our vegetables in the bags meant that over both a dry half term and even drier Easter break, they could be put in to my car and brought home and watered at home before being shipped back to our little patio space.

Once I had swooped my packet of seeds for the 10 potato seeds I brought them home and popped them in to an egg box to chit. Chitting is a special word we use when the potato seed grows little shoots. I kept them on a sunny windowsill and they have got off well. So, today I have got my self organised with getting them planted up.

Once they were in the bag, I covered them over with 10cm of compost. and moved them to the place where they will grow.

These are very early potatoes and it is not too late for you to get some potatoes in yourself.

Pop down to your local garden centre and chose which variety you like best, read the instruction on the packet and off you go. Because potatoes are propagated vegetatively, any diseases from the prior year will be carried over in those small pieces of potato. That's why it is so important to use disease-free seed potatoes. That means buying certified seed potatoes, rather than supermarket potatoes.

Don't forget to record your time and what you have done in your diary, take photographs as the potatoes grow for your evidence diary and you can record this as Garden Club.