Re: Oh Woe! Potato Wilt!

On Sun 23 May, Julianne Wiley wrote:
> >Julianne,
> >
> >At the risk of sounding a bit silly, what climate do you live in, when
> >did you plant the potatoes and have you ever grown potatoes before?
> >
> Not silly a'tall.
> 
> Upper East Tennessee. The earliest went in the second week of April and the
> last were in by the end of April.
> 
> Where we are planting:
> 
> Backyard - in tires and four foot round plastic thingies. We are filling
> both with composted leaves which we collected last fall. There is another
> patch which had been a garden site before, where we planted in rows. Again
> into basically a layer of composted leaves, mixed with store bought topsoil.
> Those are in raised beds.
It seems a bit soon to use those leaves. I would rot them for at least
a year until they have crumbled down to a brown uniformity, otherwise
you get the grey-white growths which can't be good on the young plants.
I plant my taties direct into  a thin layer of fully rotted garden
compost and they do fine. Another suggestion, if your beds are too new
then you might be getting air pockets round the roots as it settles. Try
it for looseness, if too puffy firm it gently and see that it doesn't
dry out too far.
 Allan.
-- 

Allan Day  Hereford  allan@crwys.demon.co.uk
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