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potatoes

• Message 1. 

  Posted by hawk1987 (U15136165) on Thursday, 19th April 2012

  hi,my potatoes i put in back in early march have come on well i have been earthing them up especially to avoid the frosts it appears a few shoots have been affected by the cold nights and have gone dark green will they recover from this?..i cant really earth them up any more than they are i knew it was a chance planting them early but i live in the southwest

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Kleftiwallah (U13700999) on Thursday, 19th April 2012

  Dark green leaves sounds very strange, frost normally 'burns' the edges of leaves leaving them brown and brittle.
  
  Apart from that it sounds as though you are doing everything O.K. If you are still worried a bit of fleece or an offcut of curtain lace should hold the frost off your spuds when there is a threat of any about. Cheers, Tony.

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• Message 3

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Tee Gee (U10012255) on Thursday, 19th April 2012

  About all you can do now is throw fleece over them.
  
  Keep the fleece off the leaves or this will defeat the purpose of putting it on in the first place. If it is touching the wet fleece will freeze to the leaves .
  
  To do this rig up a framework with canes or tubing to support the fleece.
  
  The fleece can be readily removed after the frost and quickly replaced if frost is forecast.
  
  Guess what? I haven't even planted my potatoes yet,, I am considering doing it next week.
  
  The reason I am so late is; it saves me all the hassle you are having through planting early! but that comes with experience and keeping a diary
  
  So next year try planting out a couple of weeks later!

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by also (U14824616) on Thursday, 19th April 2012

  Hi Hawk,
  like you I planted some potatoes very early, but was able to put some glass over them which helped a lot.
  Unfortunately I removed the glass during the good spell of weather and then got caught by the next frost, and like yours they went dark green over night.
  I then put the glass back and now they have fully recovered and doing good.
  So all the previous advice given seems good to me.
  
  However I tried a different method last year which worked well and saved
  time and effort. this can be done in the ground, but works better in bags.
  
  the bag method
  put about 4 -6 inches of compost in a bag, and lay the spuds on top. Then fill the bag near to the top with compost. Keep watered and just wait and eventually the leaves will show through. The yield was better than with the normal way of earthing up, and saved time.
  
  in the garden method
  You can achieve the same result by putting them deeper in the ground.
  You just have to be patient as they will obviously take longer to appear than the old way, but not any longer over all to be ready to eat.
  
  I am trying another method this year with my bags, which is,
  putting the spuds in the old way in compost and covering with about 4 inches of soil.
  When ready to earth up, I will use some leaf mould instead of compost as it is only to keep out the light from the growing spuds, and I have been told that it works, and will save a lot of compost .
  There's usually more ways than one to get a result. Thats one of the interesting things about gardening.
  Good luck
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

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