Plot 6B - Planting Potatoes

Last week I finally got round to planting the 'International Kidney Potatoes' that I was kindly given recently. For those of you in the know you know that these are the same as 'Jersey Royals', but as they will be grown outside of Jersey they cannot be called such. Therefore we have renamed ours 'Earlsfield Royals' due to our location.

I dug a trench for half of the potatoes and for the other I simply dug holes for each one as Monty Don did recently on Gardeners World. I found the second option easier.

I also added, with the help of my mini-gardeners, our Seaweed granules to the trench and hole. Seaweed is an excellent natural fertiliser. It's a balanced source of 58 trace elements, growth hormones, nutrients and fungal and disease preventatives. It’s like a multi vitamin for plants.

Finally my little helpers sprinkled in some NUGs Neem Fertiliser. We love this stuff as it is also a natural pest deterrent, not all pests and not our slimey friends unfortunately.

What's lovely about using all natural products is that your kids can handle them without you having to worry. The textures will be so interesting for them too. Our seaweed is in granule form and the neem in powder. Let them get involved and really get their hands dirty.

You will have heard that crop rotation is important but as we only took over the plot at the end of last summer we are unsure what has been planted where. You should avoid planting the same crop in the same place to prevent crop-specific pests and diseases from building up. Ideally, rotate a vegetable so it grows in a particular spot only one year out of three..From my recollection when we weeded. we did not find any potatoes in the section I have planted them. Fingers crossed.

If you don't have a raised bed, don't despair both Rachel & Michael grew potatoes successfully last year in the NUGs coir planter.(from £7.45 for 4)