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Cornucopia - Australia

Potatoes as part of a rotation

20 years ago

Do growers out there include potatoes in their crop rotation plan? I know Paul Healy in his book Plants without Poison said not to because they will continue to come up wherever you had them. As my garden has been developing, I often planted them wherever I had an empty spot at he time so now I am continally having them come in a flower bed. I now have a fomal parterre vegetable garden with a rotation plan but do I include potatoes. If not, how does one keep planting them in a different spot each year.

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Comments (4)

bullkelper
20 years ago
I have been growing spuds under straw now for over 20 years. Most years 5 or 6 varieties. This makes harvesting so much more efficient and thorough.The spuds are treated as a root crop and I don't have volunteers.When the spuds and straw have been removed the bed is ready for planting with seed or seedlings and no digging required.For the home garden I cannot understand why you would grow spuds any other way, Peter.
cosmicgardener
20 years ago
I have 5 beds in rotation so don't plant potatoes in the same place until 5 years have elapsed. This is to avoid potato scab disease etc. and a recommended practise in Tasmania where potato by broadacres is one of the main crops. Volunteers will generally send leaves and stem up before developing potatoes below ground, so if I get the odd one, in a previous bed, I just pull it up while small with the help of a small hand fork and discard the bit of potato that acted as a seed. I have more trouble with volunteer tomatoes and parsley.
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maddy58
18 years ago
"growing spuds under straw". Bullkelper, would you mind explaining this process to a raw beginner? I am expecting my seed potatoes to arrive from Diggers in the next couple of weeks and am very interested in obtaining advice from experienced veg growers.
pnbrown
18 years ago
It's a good method. Just lay your seed tubers right on top of the ground (preferably loosened and enriched mildly), and cover with a few inches of straw or seaweed. As the foliage grows through, keep adding material until it's foot thick or so. Essentially one is hilling with the straw instead of with dirt. If one has heavy soil it's an especially good alternative. For light soil traditional hilling is very easy and the tubers come out clean in any case.

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