Potato Trials at the Allotment

Posted September 16, 2019

With rain threatened, the first job on Thursday was to pick the soft fruit before it got wet, then on with digging up the trial potatoes and weighing them. We were using different kinds of fertiliser on the variety ‘Arran Pilot’, 4 seed potatoes to a row and only being watered if it rained. The fertilisers were dung, dung and seaweed, seaweed, and compost with a control row.

Trial potatoes

The results showed that the row with seaweed were the heaviest and strangely the row with compost the lightest. That row was planted up against the wooden edge of the bed, so I hope that was the reason!

The seaweed row also produced many good sized and standard shaped potatoes. However, it was a small trial and overall, if you exclude the compost row, there was not really a significant difference and the weights are not precise since we were using bathroom scales!

Control row 10lbs

Dung 9-10lbs

Seaweed and dung 11-12lbs

Seaweed 12lbs

Compost 7-8lbs

We also did some planting for spring vegetables, putting in spring cabbage, pak choi, chard, spinach, rocket and flat leafed parsley, covering them with enviromesh to keep the pigeons and aphids off and give them some winter protection.

Planting Spring cabbage

Last weekend we entered the Dalkeith Show and did well winning firsts for a marrow, shallots and bunch of cut herbs and a second for the plate of mixed fruit. It was a shame that the Kelsae onions did not grow well for us this year and none were good enough to show. We shall try moving them to a different bed next year and see if they grow better.