Growing potatoes successfully

Growing potatoes successfully

» 17th May 2010 «

Gardeners wishing to grow potatoes this year may be interested in the advice of one US news provider.

Vail Daily recently published advice on growing the popular vegetable, which has been a staple in diets around the world for hundreds of years.

To get a head start, gardeners should place their seed potatoes somewhere warm and bright until they begin to sprout.

Once this has been done, they should be planted into the earth in trenches dug around four inches deep with 15 inches of space between the seeds.

Soil should be moist and slightly acidic with a pH between 5.8 and 6.5 and younger specimens protected against the cold to avoid any chance of frost damage.

Although little feeding is required, a high-phosphorus fertiliser with bat guano is a great way to ensure the potatoes get all the nutrients they need.

In other news, the Royal Horticultural Society recently suggested that gardeners might not have seen the last frost of the year.

Posted by Martin Corby