Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

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Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

Postby Jostein » Thu Apr 26, 2012 4:23 pm

Hey,

I've planned to have potatoes on about 0.12 acres this year, and I would love to get some advice/thoughts on the question in the next paragraph :p

The plot in question is part of an old field on my father's farm, it has not been used for probably 4-10 years now (so its untilled/brackish). The soil has a very nice structure as it is now and I would like to keep it untilled, BUT here's my question:
Any ideas how to put out ~110kg (243 lbs) potatoes on untilled soil and get rid of the current grass in the process?

- I thought about one possibility (which I found through google on a norwegian site), it is to cover the ground with newspapers/carton and make a hole for every potato. Then proceed to put mulch ontop of the newspapers, this way the potatoes should work the soil this year and the field should be better suited for other veggies next year.. its not that labourintensive to do it this way either, but would love to hear other opinions. Perhaps your own experiences from a similar approach?
Do you think this technique would give a good yield? I have never tried it before, and I dont want to take too big risks with so much potatoes! =P
I dont have straw, but got loads of woodchips (been cutting down lots of trees around the field to get more sun onto it).

- JT
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Re: Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

Postby matt walker » Fri Apr 27, 2012 1:17 am

Jostein, I think that will work well. I do a similar approach, only a little less intensive and probably lower yielding, but it works for me. I just throw the potatoes on the ground and mulch with straw. I do this to prep new garden areas each year. I don't worry about yield, as my soil seems to always make too many potatoes for me to eat anyway. One thing I feel is important is the ability to continue to mulch as the potatoes grow. So, when they are 6" tall plants, you mulch up to the leaves again, and then when they are 6" above that, mulch again. In this way I am able to continue to smother the grass around them, and create a lot of material for them to produce potatoes in. My potato patches are full of nettles, weeds and grass, but I don't really care. When it's time to dig 'em up, it all gets torn up anyway and I'm left with a new bed. I believe your approach will do a better job of smothering the weeds, so you should get a better yield. The only concern I would have is I would not mulch too close to the plants with the wood chips. I think you will want to hill up around the plants as they grow. I use straw, but you might be able to hill up with weeds and grass clippings and organic matter that you are eradicating from other garden areas anyway. Good luck, let us know how it works.
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Re: Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Sat Dec 29, 2012 10:12 pm

I was re-reading some of the older posts and I just wondered if you actually tried the newspaper and mulch idea for a New Potato patch last year? How did it work out? Did the papers and much control the weeds well enough for you to get a good crop of potatoes? We would all love to hear how things went.
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Re: Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

Postby boo » Tue Jan 01, 2013 1:03 am

This is a little clip of Peter Cundall (incredible gardener in Australia and involved with "Organic Gardener" magazine over here) growing potatoes on old lawn (no dig method)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q1OShZZUt0k
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Re: Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

Postby GrahamB » Tue Jan 01, 2013 8:28 pm

After breaking my tiller twice now trying to prepare the new vegetable garden, I'm going to give this no-till method a try this year. My wife has a bunch of different veg going into the bit I have managed to till, but the remaining area will have potatoes, carrots and parsnips on them with hay to mulch. This ground is old compacted pasture with a lot of rocks, so if this works I intend to keep adding the mulch each year so as to eventually raise the bed above the rocks.
No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
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Re: Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Tue Jan 01, 2013 9:06 pm

Potatoes should work Great Graham, I am not so sure about the carrots. I tried to grow carrots years ago in my rocky garden soil before I started to double dig it. They did not do well. Now I plant them in loose soil that has been double dug and the rocks removed and they do great. If your goal is to get something to send down roots to help loosen the compacted soil, and you are not really worried about getting a crop, then carrots may do that for you. The potatoes do well with this set up because they grow Out and not Down. They will be laying right there in the heavy mulch that you have added. They will not be down deep in the compacted soil. This method of starting a new garden works because it kills the grass and weeds with the heavy mulch and the potatoes grow well because they just expand into the loose mulch you have given them to grow in. Your efforts are all up from there. You continue to add large amounts of mulch each year and your soil builds up from the ground level. If you are going to use raised beds this plan works very well. I am a double digging kind of a guy and so I would recommend using at least a spading fork to loosen the soil under your beds and maybe remove as many big rocks as you can when you dig it, before adding the mulch. You do not have to use the James Janson method of really double digging the bed, although his method does work extremely well. Having that 6 to 8 inches of additional soil loose enough for the roots to penetrate at the bottom of your bed will pay big dividends in the future. It will not make the potatoes do any better, but as you continue to build up the bed and plant other veggies like tomatoes or peppers in the future it will make a big difference. This plan is work this 1st year, but it will pay divides for many years to come. For many people there is never enough time to do the job right the 1st time, but there is always enough time to redo it later. Take a little time and effort when you start the new bed, I think you will be glad you did.
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Re: Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

Postby GrahamB » Wed Jan 02, 2013 4:07 am

Thanks Guy, you've just confirmed the one worry I had with that plan. I may just pass the carrots and parsnips over to my wife as I really want some parsnips. I love roasted parsnips and the ones we have been buying have been really woody. I'll also follow your advice in trying to loosen the soil before I start adding the mulch. It's hard stuff requiring the mattock, but like you said, a bit of work now will save me a bunch later on.
No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
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Re: Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Wed Jan 02, 2013 2:41 pm

That sounds like a good plan Graham. I hate to set myself up as an " Expert " but I have been doing this for over 30 years now. Some things just work better in the long run. And like Boo likes to say, I have been making " Learning Experiences Happen " for a very long time now, lol. One of the things that I really like about forums like this one is that we do not have to reinvent the wheel every time. We can learn from others mistakes, and learn from others knowledge. If you do go to all the work and trouble to loosen the soil before building the new bed on top of it, you might as well add some mulch down deep there. After all, you are not going down that deep ever again, so make it as good as you can, while you have the chance. ;) A 25 ft X 4 ft bed can easily be loosened up in a day, so it is not an undoable task.
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Re: Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

Postby GrahamB » Mon Jan 14, 2013 5:04 am

Well all week I have been at work, thinking about all the digging I was going to do this weekend. It didn't happen. My buddy called yesterday morning asking if we could take the boys squirrel hunting. He only has to ask me once. A couple of hours later and no squirrels, it began to rain, so we called it a day and I started thinking about the garden again. But when I got back home, I realized that not only was it raining, but the rain was freezing on the ground. So I spent the rest of the day by the fire.
This morning I woke and started thinking about the digging once more. I looked out of the window and our first covering of snow had arrived. A day to get all the house jobs finished.
Sometimes it seems that we are not masters of our own destiny, and someone up there is definitely in charge.
No matter how many mistakes you make or how slow you progress, you are still way ahead of everyone who isn’t trying.
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Re: Seeking advice or thoughts on a question I have..

Postby pa_friendly_guy » Fri Sep 20, 2013 1:45 pm

I happened to re-read this post and wondered if you planted potatos in that area last spring Gaham? If you didn't get to double dig before you made the bed, you will be digging up the potatos, so that gives you another opertunity. ;) ;) Either way I was just wondering, :D
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