Tatties

This year we thought we'd try growing our tatties in tyre stacks. We also had some big gravel bags so we chucked some in these too.

Theory is that you start with one tyre filled with compost (we used a mix of home cooked compost and soil from upturned turf which was well rotted down), or a layer of about 20 to 30cm in the bottom of the bags. Stick in your seed potato and wait. Once they are above soil you top up the bags/tyres with more compost and keep doing that. As they grow you add on another tyre or unroll the bag until you are about 5 tyres high. The extended height is supposed to increase the yield.

So far so good. Last weekend I fear we got a bit carried away and covered them up too much. As some of them, seem to be taking their time coming through. These ones seem to be doing OK though, but they were the taller ones which were left with a small bit of shaw showing through. I never quite know if you should cover tatties totally or not. Anyone have any advice?

It is a pretty time consuming task though as we can't seem to keep up with the growth. But it does give us a good chunk of extra growing space and once finished we should have a good soil base for the new raised beds.