Growing Potatoes
October is main potato-planting time, so hopefully you’ve got your garden beds prepared in readiness. If not there’s still time to fork out those weeds and add compost, well rotted manure and mineral fertilisers before the classic Labour Weekend plant out. Main crop potatoes can be planted now. Here’s a few ideas for growing great potatoes. They prefer a sunny, well-drained, acid soil.
Prepare the ground before planting by digging or forking the soil over to a spade depth, removing any weeds (especially couch grass).
Select medium-sized sprouted potatoes from last year (if disease-free) or buy seed potatoes.
Mark out rows with a string line at 60cm apart. Dig a trench using a potato hoe or shovel to about 20cm deep.
Add comfrey leaves (high in potassium, which potatoes love) followed by lots of compost. A handful of rock phosphate, fish meal or blood and bone can be added.
Plant seed potatoes 30-40cm apart with sprouts facing upwards.
Cover with grass clippings as protection against scab.
Replace soil.
As the potatoes emerge, hoe the soil over them as they poke through until the row is well mounded.
Straw, hay, seaweed and seagrass can be used to mulch developing plants for weed control, moisture retention and added nutrition.
Alternatively, potatoes can also be laid directly on the ground (especially in wet or heavy soils) and heavily mulched with hay or straw. Add grass clippings as shoots emerge. Mulch again when the potatoes die down to prevent them from greening.
Potatoes can be grown in tyre towers to save space. Start with one or two tyres. Add compost, soil etc, and poke in the tuber. Add another tyre and mulch as potatoes grow.
Watch out for blight. Spray with copper or remove affected leaves.
Look out for the aphid-like psyllid bug that eats leaves and seriously affects tuber formation. Spray with garlic and pyrethrum.
Keep potatoes well watered. Harvest once they’ve flowered, or wait till the tops die down. It’s best to lift them before autumn rains, unless the soil is light and sandy.
Fruit care
Put pheromone traps up in orchards to prevent moth pests.
Plant passionfruits in warm spot with free-draining soil.
Sow beneficial understorey annuals now.
Plant comfrey and other beneficial herbs around orchards.
Plant strawberries into well-prepared beds. Mulch with pine needles. Start liquid fertilising with comfrey.
Spray stonefruit and pipfruit with cutonic copper vs bacterial diseases before and after bud burst, or use liquid seaweed as a tonic.
Use all-purpose oil or lime sulphur for scale insect on citrus.
Prune citrus as you harvest. Best to do heavy pruning now. Feed citrus (Flourish compost is good) especially if plants look sick.
Apply fertilisers to fruits before spring growth, eg rock phosphate, lime, boron and wood ash.
Herb Care
Sow annual herbs, eg coriander, parsley and basil.
Build a herb spiral.
Plant parsley and perennial herbs.
Vegetable Care
Sow and pot up main crops (eg cucumbers) in a propagation house or cold frame.
Continue to lightly till bare ground several times to create a clean seed bed for sowing root crops.
Cloche sensitive crops for frost protection and soil warming. Plastic bottles work for individual seedlings too.
Liquid fertilise young seedlings in the morning once a week, especially with nitrogenous brews like diluted liquid manures and urine.
Weed beds, especially around alliums.
Stake broad beans and peas.
Stay observant for pests and diseases, especially slugs and snails. Use coffee grounds as a deterrent.
Plant Jerusalem artichokes, rhubarb and asparagus into well-prepared beds.
Hothouse
Prick out ready seedlings into pots or trays.
Prepare and plant early hothouse crops like tomatoes, eggplants and peppers.
Use pots for tomatoes, peppers, etc, and put in sunny place if you haven’t got a hothouse.
For transplanting: Leafy greens (summer spinach, silverbeet/chard, lettuce, endive, cabbages)(best 13th October). Sweetcorn, cucumbers, zucchini, pumpkins, tomatoes, peppers and eggplants (best 14th-15th October). Flowers, eg petunias. Herbs (best 11th October).
Sow direct: Mesclun salad (best 13th October). Radish, kohlrabi, spring onions, carrot, beetroot (cover) and parsnip (best 17th-18th October). Peas, French beans (under cloche)(best 14th-15th October). Flowers, eg hollyhocks.
Plant: Salad greens, spinach, cabbages, broccoli, cauliflower, onions, main potatoes, yams and early tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, pumpkins, peppers and eggplants (under cover). Flowers, eg dahlias.
General garden care
Take soft tip cuttings from herbaceous perennials and shrubs. Plant into a box of sand, and cover with plastic.
Collect seaweed.
Make compost.
Mulch citrus with grass clippings.
Start a garden diary.
Sol Morgan, GroWise Consultancy
