hello and welcome to gardening with
Ben's awardwinning podcast as voted by
grow your own magazine and by my
followers and listeners so if you're new
to the podcast make sure you click that
subscribe button to stay up to date with
all our podcasts listen back to all our
previous episodes sit back grab a brew
and let's enjoy today's episode hello
everyone and welcome back to gardening
with Ben for a new episode a day well
I'm back on night shift so that means
I'm not at the allotment this week even
though the weather has turned absolutely
fantastic this week I think the
temperatures are going to be like 14° or
something this week so it'll get pretty
warm down at the allotment in the shed
and stuff like that so the seeds that
we've got growing I'm hoping that they
do start to germinate more and get
growing more and hopefully come along a
bit further and get Get Growing really
because that's what we want we want
everything to start coming along and
start growing now and we really do need
to start looking at getting my summer
seeds soon and getting all them growing
uh especially all my flowers and
everything like that and in one of our
episodes we're going to talk about some
of the best flowers to grow at the
allotment hopefully the plan is to be
back down at the allotment on Saturday
for three days and hopefully we'll get
plenty done in them three days and
hopefully the weather will still be
lovely and we'll hopefully get plenty
done down there so yeah I'm going to be
looking at getting my compost and
getting all my seeds soon possibly next
week uh we'll hopefully start to look
into doing that now because we need to
get moving and get cracking because
time's starting to fly now and these
jobs need doing and getting the seeds
sewn is a massive job you don't realize
how big a job it is sewing all the seeds
and getting all them ready for the year
ahead so we need to look into doing that
so what are we talking about today we're
going to be talking about potatoes
growing potatoes
yep if you're new to allotments growing
potatoes can
be one of the easiest things to try and
grow
to be honest because it's one of the
first things and straightforward things
that you can grow on a lotman or in a
garden and potatoes are something
everybody seems to have great success
with not many people have issues with
potatoes but there are a few tips out
there for growing decent potatoes and
we're going to be sharing some with you
today in today's episode so sit back
relax and enjoy today's
podcast so growing potatoes Now
everywhere you'll be looking in the
garden centers in the shops they will be
starting to sell seed potatoes if not
some are probably selling out of them
now because they've been on sale for
quite a while and people are going to be
getting ready for planting them and what
a lot of gardeners do is they like to
chit the potatoes first and when they
mean chitting potatoes it means putting
the potatoes in like egg boxes uh cuz
the potatoes fit nicely in them gaps um
and then they'll put them in a light
room like a shed or a greenhouse it
needs to be frost free uh and they will
start to send out their Sprouts it's a
way of encouraging the potato to start
growing and start producing those shoes
on it so that when you plant them
they've got a head start in growing
because that can take a while for them
to start sprouting don't put them in a
dark room because that sends them all uh
all the shoots weedy and horrible and
stuff like that but a lot of people tend
to chip them first to get them
started now when it comes to planting
potatoes I tend
to stick with
planting mine on Good Friday it's an old
wife's taale planting potatoes on Good
Friday as it moves every month obviously
every year um The Good Friday can change
from year to year one year it can be
really early one year it can be really
late but it's all to do with the moon
and it's an old myth's tale so that's
what I've always stuck with doing on my
allotment and I I get great success with
my potatoes and hopefully I'll get great
success this year now when you come to
planting your
potatoes um a lot of people say it's
good to plant potatoes where it's like a
new piece of ground that you've not used
before because it helps break up the
soil uh from all the digging and
everything and from the potatoes growing
in it it helps break it up and makes it
a lot better for future growing in and
there's two methods of ways that you can
plant your
potatoes um there the one which is the
hardest work is digging a trench now the
trench needs to be at least a spade and
a half deep because the deeper that you
plant them the more potatoes you've got
the chance of growing
and you need to make sure that they
spaced out evenly so that they've got
space to grow uh possibly a spade and a
half with width apart the potatoes and
mark them all out and plant them all in
your trench now some people put manure
in it but I've read that putting manure
in it can rot the potatoes so I've never
put manure in mine and I've still had
great success with growing them but some
people do that or some people put
newspaper in as well uh so there's
plenty of different tips on growing them
but you can also pick up potato
fertilizer which is good for growing the
potatoes as well so have a look around
and see what you can get for planting
your
potatoes now once you've planted your
potatoes what you need to do is you need
to back fill all the soil back in and
obviously Mark out your roots because
they're not going to be popping through
the ground for a long time so you need
to know where you've planted them and
you can always plant other stuff in
between the potatoes as a space f you
can plant lettuce because that'll be
ready before then plant beetroot
anything that will grow before the
potato as a harvest you can use as a
space filler and using space wisely is
definitely a good option so once you've
got all those
planted and maybe about a month a couple
of months afterwards you will start to
see the shoots popping out of the top of
the soil
now if it's still cold when the shoots
are popping out you need to make sure
that you Heap the soil up over the top
of the Sho again this will encourage
more potatoes because there's more space
for them to fill and produce the
potatoes but also it stops the potato
plants from getting Frost damage now one
year A couple of years ago it were is we
had a very late Frost and I noticed a
lot of people getting the
potatoes wiped out by the frost because
they'd not got them heaped up or they
planted them too early and stuff like
that and they lost it scorched all the
plants they all went black and it
damaged a lot of the potato plants now
that is something that you don't want to
do so make sure that you Heap them up
and keep keep them heaped up for as long
as possible and you will notice
that they'll start to send out purple
flowers and stuff like that the potato
plants and they do look very pretty and
each type of potatoes take so long to
grow whether it be earlies latees
or any other types of potatoes they can
take quite a while to grow now the
packet that you purchased them on will
tell you how long long it takes for the
potatoes to grow but my rule of thumb is
I usually wait for the potato plant to
die off that's when I know that they are
ready to harvest so that is when I tend
to harvest my potatoes and also you'll
notice on the potato plants that they do
send out these tomato looking fruit on
them now the thing is do not eat them
they are poisonous and they can give you
a really bad upset stomach they're not
edible whatsoever so don't eat them and
another reason why you heat the soil up
is because you don't want the potatoes
going green because if your potatoes go
green they can be poisonous as well and
make you very sick so that is another
reason why you Heap up
potatoes but yeah there's definitely a
good way of growing potatoes and you can
have great success in growing them
and another method of growing potatoes
is in tubs now I always grow my potatoes
in tubs over Christmas and have a
Christmas Harvest because you can grow
potatoes lat on in the poly tunnel and
you can get a crop over Christmas so you
can keep growing potatoes all the way
through up until winter and getting
crops that way but obviously if you're
growing them in tubs all you need to do
is just put a couple of potatoes in a
bucket and fill it up with soil you
don't have to Heap it up or anything
just make sure that there's drainage
holes in the tubs when you're planting
them and that you do keep them watered
because they will dry out faster so you
need some nice big tubs to grow the
potatoes in and then you'll get lots of
potatoes in them sometimes they're a lot
smaller because they've not got as much
space to grow but you can get a great
harvest of potatoes in tubs so if you've
not got ground to grow potatoes in like
an alotment or a big Garden get some big
tubs and get some planted in there and
I've had great success my dad's had
great success and yeah you can get a
decent crop of
potatoes
now there's obviously you can grow them
from seed
potatoes but some people do grow them
from the shop bought potatoes because if
they've started growing shoots of them
people think oh just throw them in
and see how they get on or if there's a
variety that you enjoy in the
supermarket and you want some more you
might think well I can't purchase these
ones why not try growing these ones from
the supermarket now some people say you
shouldn't do it because they're not
disease resistant and they can get
diseased quite easily now my dad he
grows them from the supermarket ones
every single year and he has some
fantastic crops from them and sometimes
they can be a lot cheaper to buy than
they would do in Sea potatoes so it's up
to you what you want to try whether you
want to try this seed potatoes what you
get in garden centers or whether you
want to use a supermarket variety ones
the choice is up to you so yeah it's
quite good growing potatoes it can be
quite fun and definitely rewarding you
can get a lot of potatoes for your
money's worth if you look after the
plants very well and just remember
remember to keep them weed free because
the more the weeds are there the more
they'll take all the nutrients and the
goodness from the soil which you don't
want whatsoever you want them to be weed
free so that they've got all the
nutrients and all the water from the
soil to grow some decent potatoes with
so yeah that has been our little
conversation today talking about how to
grow potatoes and having great success
with them and also growing potatoes they
are so much more tastier than
Supermarket potatoes trust me until
you've grown a potato and tasted it you
won't realize what you have been missing
out on they are absolutely delicious and
the Skins just come off them so easy
when you're washing them and they just
melt in your mouth the potatoes so yeah
have a try growing potatoes let me know
if it's your first year and you're going
to give them a try so until next time
remember keep keep smiling keep
gardening and keep listening to
gardening with Ben's
podcasts so thank you for listening to
today's episode of gardening with Ben we
hope that you've enjoyed this episode
remember to do click that subscribe
button to stay up to date with all our
podcasts feel free to share them on your
Instagram stories so that it spreads the
word about my podcast and we get lots
more listeners feel free to check out my
social media sites Facebook and
Instagram as well gardening with Ben
and also my YouTube channel to stay up
to date with all my handy videos how-to
videos and sharing my tips and advice
and feel free to check the link as well
in the description for my gardening with
Ben t-shirts lots of funny gardening
design t-shirts in their few to purchase
at great prices too so thanks again and
as always remember keep smiling and keep
gardening