May 1st - Potatoes are living up to to their name; "Rocket"!

by Rick
(From Container-Gardening-For-Food.com)

This will be the forth time in two weeks I have had to 'earth-up' the potatoes.

For seed potatoes that didn't seem to want to do anything at first, they're certainly making up for lost time now.

They are first-earlies called "Rocket" and now I know where they get their name from. After a night of rain, I went out to check on them this morning was was greeted with what seemed like an inch of new growth since yesterday.


Earthing-up is a relatively simple process, you just roll the sides of the bags upwards, and add more soil, re-burying the leaves until they just poke out from the surface. Unfortunately it does take a lot of compost, and I have now started running low. Despite the 25-30 bags I brought at the start of this project, it looks like a trip to the garden center is on the cards again.

My second earlies (Charlotte, vivaldi & more rocket) are currently chitting and will be planted soon.

Hopefully, potatoes will be on the menu in the not to distant future.

Rick