Don’t let anybody say growing your own spuds isn’t worth it: one mouthful of sweet, buttery new potatoes, cooked minutes after you dug them up, tells you otherwise.
Grow your own and you’ll discover more variety than you knew existed, with dozens of richly flavoured, brightly coloured potatoes to choose from. Homegrown spuds are also chemical free and count food miles in metres.
Potato plants are big beasts, though, and as gardens shrink and awareness grows about how digging damages soil, gardeners are trying new ways to grow them. We put four techniques to the test to see if they’re up to the job, as well as growing spuds the old-fashioned way for comparison.
We assessed each method for effort, suitability, environmental impact and, of course, yield. What we discovered was sometimes surprising – but proved that wherever and however you grow, there’s space for spuds in every garden.
Raised beds
TRADITIONAL
Best for High yields
Traditional trench growing, handed down from gardener to gardener for generations, requires plenty of space and a sturdy back.
Dig a trench about 20cm deep then sit tubers along the bottom, 30cm apart for first earlies or 45cm for second earlies and maincrops. Backfill with soil. Once sprouts appear, earth them up, pulling soil over the stems with a hoe to encourage more tubers.
This method required the most work by far. It isn’t feasible in small gardens, and it doesn’t do the soil much good as you’re constantly disturbing it. But the rewards were high: we harvested more potatoes from this method than any other.
Pro Hefty harvests
Con Hard work
Yield High (about 1.5kg per plant)
この記事は Gardeners World の January 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
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この記事は Gardeners World の January 2022 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
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