Not Much Difference

Saturday certainly saw a temperature change for the month as although it was a decent sunny day the temperature didn’t manage to get above 18.4°C (65.1°F) rather cooler than we’ve been used to. Over night into Sunday saw our coldest night time temperature of the month with just 6.2°C (43.2°F).

On Saturday I finished lifting our first early potatoes Casablanca and Foremost. We grew the same number of tubers of each variety under weed control fabric and planted conventionally using our trowel and earthing up method. Comparing the yields from both methods there was little to choose between them.

The above table shows the yield from each method. Each bed contained a 5.0m row of each variety but the ones grown conventionally were the easiest to harvest first and we’ve been lifting them as new potatoes since 04 July when they still had leafy tops and perhaps a bit more growing to do.

Conventionally grown Foremost and Casablanca 11 July 2015

Once the potatoes grown under weed control fabric were lifted the straw and manure used to hold the fabric in place were spread over the bed and then incorporated into the soil.

I’m now deciding whether or not to replace the fabric back over the bed immediately or to leave it off for a few weeks. If we have some more rain the bed would benefit from being dug over again. In any case I shall replace the weed control fabric over the bed to stop any weeds growing over autumn and into winter. This bed will be used for early brassicas next year and will only need some fertiliser incorporating in spring next year a few weeks before planting.

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett