Garden And Gardener

Everything for the Gardener and their Garden

Potatoes for clearing new ground? Myth!

by Diane - September 11th, 2012.
Filed under: allotment.

It’s often said that planting potatoes will clear new ground.
This isn’t the case. It’s the person who digs the ground and then weeds it, earths up the potatoes and removes more weeds who clears the ground.
By applying well rotted muck to newly cultivated soil and then weeding it and having a healthy canopy of leaves across the soil to discourage weeds can help – but it’s not the no effort method you’d expect.

I have seen potatoes planted in a much easier way: weedkill the area you want to use. Allow the weedkiller time to work. Repeat if it is persistant weeds there – and then put potatoes on the top of the soil. Apply copious amounts of well rotted muck on top. Apply straw as the potatoes grow. Harvest the spuds when the foliage dies back.
Result is a potato crop, without digging and clear soil that’s got plenty of organic matter on top and the worm population should be in good spirits!

If you’d like to learn more about no dig gardening then this book is probably the best one to read: Organic Gardening: The Natural No-dig Way
– Charles Dowding grows organicly using a no dig method.
Respect and encourage life as much as your can, chiefly by spreading good compost or manure.
There is no need to dig in compost and manure – just spread it on top and let worms take it in. Digging can harm soil structure, and is not helpful to plants.
You can reduce weeding to a little hand-weeding or hoeing every ten days.