Chilli Up North Blog » potatoes

Garden and Site Update 25th July 09

Andy — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 11:07:35 +0000

It’s been a bit of a strange month this month, we have had some scorching weather followed by floods and torrential rain so one minute the plants in the greenhouse are cooked and crispy the next they are under water. Last week i spent an hour removing water from the greenhouse in buckets after a really heavy downpour, still it could have been worse…just look at the pics of next doors garden below.

The wind and rain have messed up some parts of the garden, especially the spuds, they are looking worse for wear, slugs also seem to have gotten a taste for the tops of my onions so that’s not great, on the plus side everything seems to have shot up and started ripening and we have had bucket loads of peas, spuds, lettuce,raspberries and beans.

Ive also had a few problems with white fly but some organic spray seems to have done the job and my too rather poorly looking dorset naga plants have recovered well since i moved them so I’m still hoping for some fruit on them.

The biggest revelation so far is the hawaiian currant tomatoes, the seeds were given to me by a friend, they are about the size of…well you have guessed it a currant, The plants are nice and compact and you get lovely little bunches of tiny fruit. The fruit themselves are lovely, very sweet and have a great texture, they are perfect for scattering on salads or eating like grapes!

Fingers crossed the weather will sort it’s self out soon and i can start harvesting my chillis and other tomatoes along with my main crop spuds and the rest of my new spuds.

As far as Chilli Up North and the website goes, i am getting close to finishing the proper website so it shouldn’t be long now. I have lots of reviews to post of chilli products that i have been testing lately, if anyone has any chilli products they would like to see reviewed or has any products they want to send me to review then please let me know.

anyway here are a few pics:

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Another Busy Weekend

Andy — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 11:16:00 +0000

As i’d mentioned in another post earlier, it was a busy weekend in the garden, as well as fixing the green house, i did a whole lot of other stuff, including planting my spuds (charlotte, nicola, kestril and maris piper, planted my onions in the cold frame, planting my goji berry bush, planting lots of seeds and other plants around the garden.

it was hard work and took more or less the whole day so i definately appreciated my sunday lunch and a couple of beers in the sun afterwards.

anway here are a few pictures for you

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Bought: Seed Potatoes

Andy — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 20:26:01 +0000

Popped into town yesterday to do a bit of shopping and nipped into wilkinsons, this is where i usually get my potato seeds form as they are cheap and usually good quality.

The idea with seed potatoes is that you buy them then put them somewhere cool and light to “chit”. Chitting is the process of allowing the seed to sprout (like if you leave shop bought spuds in a cupboard for too long)

Once chitted they are ready for planting in Feb/March dependingon the variety.

I bought 3 types yesterday and will try to get one more next week.

the ones i bought were:

2nd early – Charlotte
2nd early – Nicola
Main crop – Maris piper

seed potatoes from wilkinsons

The 2nd earlies make good new potatoes and salad potatoes and are ready earlier than maincrop (hence their name) so in order to have some nice fresh spuds earlier i will also be getting some first earlies which will be ready even sooner.

Ill be planting them in a different part of the garden to last year as its not good practice to grow the same crop in the same place year after year.

I will also be growing some in tubs and compost bags as these can be hidden out of the way and make use of space that would otherwise be wasted.

If you want to try growing spuds and don’t have a garden then growing in tubs or bags is an idea way to get started, wilko’s even do a kit now that gives you everything you need to get growing on your patio or path.