glittertrash's Purple Congo potato x 9

I ordered these potatoes ages ago, and they arrived probably 6 weeks ago. I really should have gotten them into the ground sooner but I haven’t had anywhere to put them- the fence-line is all full and since we still have an active bike workshop in the backyard I’ve been a bit dubious about just digging into random empty patches of ground. My solution was going to be using tire-stacks in a row in front of the fence-line beds, but I haven’t been able to convince anyone to drive me to go pick up some old tires (I don’t have a car).

So while I’ve been pondering, and meaning to get to it, these have been sprouting quite nicely in an egg carton on the window sill.

Finally on Friday the plumber came out to inspect a possible broken sewer line, which turned out to be no such thing (thank goodness), and while he was here he dug quite a few holes in the backyard. I looked at those holes, and I thought of my potatoes, and I got a little opportunistic and asked him not to fill the holes back up.

When he left I dug the holes into slightly neater rectangles, and pulled out as much of the weed/grass layer of the dirt as I could, then shoveled the dirt loosely back in, mixed a bucket of compost into each hole and a bit of composted cow manure. Watered it all in. Then planted my potatoes about a hand deep into the holes, mulched thickly with straw, and watered again.

I hammered short bamboo posts in at the edges of the new potato beds to mark them as MY GARDENING TERRITORY (ie keep out, bike people!), and I also plan to wrap wire around those poles so that I can mulch up as the plants grow.

Other potato varieties planted: Nicola, Sapphire & King Edward