potatoes

[chip kobb]

Hello to you all im still quite an inexperienced gardener so my questions may seem a bit daft to some of you but its all a learning curve and if i can help out with any welding queries you may have then alls fair. This year i planted earlies for the first time and am now harvesting the fruits of my toil and very nice they are too,my question is a simple one ...what can i plant in the space that's being created? I'm told i must rotate the positions of my veg annually and will happily do that but can i not plant some more potatoes of a later variety in the newly cleared space without incurring the dreaded blight? All advice,comments or rants welcome. thankyou chip

[diggernotdreamer]

Hello Chip, I can tell you what I am going to plant where I have just harvested my early spuds, some calabrese plants. Normally you would plant all your spuds at around the same time, this is because the amount of time from planting to harvest differs, earlies take about 10 weeks and then you have second earlies a few weeks after that, then early maincrop and late maincrop coming to maturity up to 20 weeks after you planted them. You could put in some runner bean plants, french beans, sweetcorn, sow some carrots, beetroots, cut and come again salads, radish, just to name a few. I think if you put in some more potatoes, you would probably get some problems with blight and you might not get a decent crop from the space.

[oldjerry]

Don't entirely go along with that( mostly though).I plant all my first earlies in buckets,then follow them with the same again.( In fact 90% of our spuds are earlies.)If you 've stuck them in the ground,lime a bit, then follow up with Purple Sprouting ,if you've not sown any, buy plants from the market,now.Other Brassica,specially Savoy is poss,just not so nice!

[Odsox]

The traditional way (at least where I used to live) was to grow Brussels sprouts where the first earlies where. Normally planted between the rows as the haulm of earlies is usually not very tall compared to maincrop, and when the potatoes are (carefully) dug up you're left with a row of sprouts.
It's not too late to put some in now if you can find some plants in a garden centre, or if you don't like sprouts you could plant winter cabbage or a bit later, over wintering cauliflowers.

Doubled with OJ, all sound advice.

[doofaloofa]

I follow earlies with lime then leeks, and garlic

[diggernotdreamer]

I might plant next doors cat if it shits one more time on my beds

[doofaloofa]

I might plant next doors cat if it shits one more time on my beds

Get ye a shotgun pilgrim

[clanpowell]

I might plant next doors cat if it shits one more time on my beds

If I were about 10 or more years younger I'd be writing "LOL" right now. But I'm not so I'm going to be a grown up and shout "Super Soaker that kitty"

[The Riff-Raff Element]

I think a licence should be required for a cat. Just like shotguns, you should have to demonstrate a need for owning one.

I can see a place for the farm cat that keeps rodents under control, but otherwise, what are they for? They decimate the wild bird population and enrage neighbours when they crap on carefully tended gardens.

If I did that I'd be arrested.

[doofaloofa]