Up until now we haven’t grown potatoes. This is mainly due to a lack of space, since it’s impossible for us to be self-sufficient with only 100 square metres of space available. However, we may extend with an allotment in the future and so this year we thought we’d dabble with just 2 kg of seed potatoes. We chose, Maris Piper – a main-crop variety which, on reflection, might not be the best choice since it is widely available and cheap to buy locally. It would have been better to focus on a rarer or more expensive variety due to the lack of space. However, we hope to harvest a good crop at the end of summer, recoup our initial investment and have some fun along the way.
There are two other reasons why we’re growing potatoes this year. The first is that they fall within the same group as tomatoes (solanaceae) in the four year crop rotation we’re applying. We grew too many tomatoes last year and so dividing this space between two crops will be better. The second reason is that we want to extend the array of crops we grow on the front garden – just to be different and more unusual than last year.
Last year we grew dwarf french beans, spinach, chard, beetroot, lettuce, spring onions, sweetcorn and herbs on the front garden – all companion planted wth flowers, which worked well. We were pleased with the end result and would like to be more daring this year. We therefore plan to use potatoes as the centre-piece in two of our front garden beds and build the other crops around them. This is why we chose a main-crop variety, so that they could be left undisturbed until the end of summer.
Up until now, there’s been no crop rotation in the front garden and we will need to think about this next year, but for now we plan to create something interesting and fun. One of the fun things we like about gardening is the freedom to create.
We’ll leave you with two photos. One shows the seed potatoes ready for chitting. Any the other shows last year’s front garden at its peak.
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Good luck with the potatoes! Wish that I had enough space for even some potato bags – one day, one day…
Thanks – it would be nice if there was enough space for everyone to have an allotment. Your blog looks great. We’ll definitely be popping back for inspiration.
Good luck with your endeavours. Front garden looked great last year.
Thanks – we’ll try to be little more adventurous this year. We’ve been reading about gardens in Australia and it doesn’t seem so odd to use your front garden (or yard) there. Maybe it’s just in the UK that it seems slightly bizarre.