Seedlings & Spuds

Food, Nutrition and Agriculture
redskies
Posts: 1551
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:35 am

Seedlings & Spuds

Post by redskies »

I've tried and tried uploading pics. First it didn't like the size. Then it didn't like the fact that I add an 'e' to indicated that a picture has been edited. Stuff it. Photobucket it is!

First three are of the sprouting/chitting set up on top of the shelves in the velux window. Dead simple. Oh, the milk carton - it's got holes punched in the lid, to make a fine head, so the seedlings don't get splatted. And it's always full of water, so they're watered at the right temp.

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These are the spud set up. We did this today. Lay out the anti weed & slug matting - the black sheet on the bottom. Put the tyres out, fill them with compost. Plant half a dozen tatties in each tyre and add a couple of handfuls of kelp. Put another tyre on the stack, fill it with earth. The wire covers are an anti cat measure; I want tatties, not cat crap! When the first leaves of the tatties show, there will be another tyre added and filled with earth. That will go on til the stacks are six or seven tyres high. Come harvesting time, just lay out a tarp, knock the stacks onto it, then pick up the tatties. The compost can be fertilised (kelp, manure, however you like) and reused.

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Le Mouse

Re: Seedlings & Spuds

Post by Le Mouse »

That's brilliant. Lots of food for thought there. Thanks redskies!

How many spuds can you get out of one tyre pile?
redskies
Posts: 1551
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:35 am

Re: Seedlings & Spuds

Post by redskies »

Spoke to someone I know last night, he's an expert gardener. He says he would expect to get one pound of spuds for every tuber planted. So six pounds per stack, forty two pounds total. However - he grows the traditional way, rather than in stacks like this, and I think we might get more than that. We'll have to see what happens. But if all goes well, I expect just under half a hundredweight of spuds come harvest time!

He also put me on to heated beds. Apparently, the Victorians used the heat of rotting manure to grow things like pineapples. And there's a guy in Yorkshire using the technique (goes back to Roman times) to grow spuds through the winter. I think it bears further investigation :)
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pseudonym
Posts: 4623
Joined: Wed Jul 27, 2011 10:11 am
Location: East Midlands

Re: Seedlings & Spuds

Post by pseudonym »

Great thread, thanks for sharing.:)
Two is one and one is none, but three is even better.
preppingsu

Re: Seedlings & Spuds

Post by preppingsu »

redskies wrote:Spoke to someone I know last night, he's an expert gardener. He says he would expect to get one pound of spuds for every tuber planted. So six pounds per stack, forty two pounds total. However - he grows the traditional way, rather than in stacks like this, and I think we might get more than that. We'll have to see what happens. But if all goes well, I expect just under half a hundredweight of spuds come harvest time!

He also put me on to heated beds. Apparently, the Victorians used the heat of rotting manure to grow things like pineapples. And there's a guy in Yorkshire using the technique (goes back to Roman times) to grow spuds through the winter. I think it bears further investigation :)
Can you find a linkie for that guy in Yorkshire. That sounds interesting.
redskies
Posts: 1551
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:35 am

Re: Seedlings & Spuds

Post by redskies »

This is the one I was given - http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00r9xf5

And he also sent me this one, which is quite interesting - http://www.motherearthnews.com/modern-h ... spx?page=3


Both very interesting, especially to me, as the wind is a huge problem for growing here. I believe that if I can get the underground greenhouse dug, then I could even grow tea and coffee here, with a bit of fiddling and faddling!

Tobacco seeds arrived today, so will be off to plant those after dinner. They should do very nicely in the velux window :)
Selfsufficientwoman

Re: Seedlings & Spuds

Post by Selfsufficientwoman »

Started my seedlings inside as usual - things I usually start mid Feb/mid March:

Cucumbers, Tomatoes (various varieties including yellow), sweet pepper, chilli, carrots. I start mine inside and place on southfacing windowledge. one cucumber plant yields about 10 - 15 cucumbers, My toms yield on average 60 - 100 per plant . Sweet pepper - yields roughly 6-10 per plant.

I grow all in largepots when transferred outside due to foxes and cats in the area (£1.00 store has some nice tyvek type tomato pots which are deep for the roots and cheap compared to actual plastic pots which are expensive to get a good size. Growing in pots reduces the risk of mould and contamination in my case near me cat and fox pee! - tried to upload the pictures of my seedlings - which all have leaves now - but keep getting file is too big :(
redskies
Posts: 1551
Joined: Mon Jan 07, 2013 12:35 am

Re: Seedlings & Spuds

Post by redskies »

More pics. There's still a fair bit left to plant; catnip, strawberry sticks, dyers woad, hoarehound and a few other bits. But the majority of the seedlings are now in the nursery tyre, ready to go into the stand we're going to build for the herbs. Will post pics of that too, as it's being made out of 4in soil pipe on a tiered stand, with ovals drilled in it for the plants to sit in.


Nursery tyre; this one has all my seedlings in it, underglass til they're a wee bit bigger and can go into the stand that's being made for the herbs. To the left is my honeysuckle (you can make wine from the flowers), in a tyre with small rocks to stop the cats digging it up/crapping in it.

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Onion beds; tyres with old windows over the top. They seem to be quite happy in there!

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Main bed set up. The two stacks on the right have seed in them; turnip, leek, carrot and spring onion. Those last two are planted together, companion plants, as the spring onions help keep the carrot fly off. The empty beds will be used to thin the seedlings into when they're ready.

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