Weeding the Web

Bloggers' tips on growing potatoes in containers to produce a high yield

The post I wrote on growing potatoes in containers last September is currently attracting quite a bit of traffic, reminding me that I promised to round up the advice of bloggers who'd had a go at growing 100 lbs of potatoes in a 4 foot square container.

Just to recap, the idea is to earth up potatoes as they grow, with the idea that the plant will continue to produce stolons (and therefore potatoes) along the length of the stem, filling the container with potatoes at all levels. Results have been, almost without exception, disappointing, with potatoes at the bottom of the container, where the seed potato was placed, and a lot of empty soil above.

But... Let's revisit Phillip Cairns at Mudsongs. He had a go three years running, honing his methods but without great success. Last September he wrote to me: "If we don't get good results this year, we're done trying. We'll update the page on our website if the mini potato tower is successful (though we have our doubts)."

Well, go and have a look! Against his expectations, he harvested 33 lbs (15kg) of potatoes, double his previous year's yield. He says:

Many of the potatoes we harvested from our mini tower this year grew near the top of the tower just below the surface of the soil (and most of them were large potatoes), which seems to indicate that the potato tower hilling process actually works.

A spud by any other name would be...

Gardening raises its head in unexpected places. I've been buried in Castle Gay recently. By John Buchan, it's a boy's own type of adventure, set in the Scottish Highlands. Husband likes Buchan very much and, as I'd already disappointed him by not getting enjoying Huntingtower, the previous volume in the three books featuring Dickson McCunn, I had another go.

I was arrested within a couple of pages by the description of aforesaid Dickson, a retired grocer with a thread of romance in his soul:

It was his habit to wear a tailed coat and trousers of tweed, a garb which from his boyish recollection he thought proper for a country laird, but which to the ordinary observer suggested a bookmaker. Gradually, a little self-consciously, he had acquired what he considered to be the habits of the class. He walked in the garden with a spud; his capacious pockets contained a pruning knife and twine...

Now, why, I mused, would you, as an aspiring country gentleman, expect to promenade your paths clutchng a King Edward?  Husband passed me the dictionary. Sure enough, a spud is not a potato (which as slang surely wouldn't have appeared in narrative in 1930) but a "small narrow digging tool with a spadelike blade".

And, I hazard, looking at the enormous amount of long-rooted corn parsley that I've foisted on myself, jolly useful. I went looking.

Photograph a winning garden holiday

I'm always looking out for garden photography competitions. I guess it's the feeling that I've taken enough of the dratted things - surely one of them is worth something? 

Here's one that I can't enter, as I've never been away with Brightwater Holidays. They specialise in escorted garden tours abroad and in the UK, with, they say, an enviable reputation for those that visit Scotland, although they go as far afield as Seville, Dublin, and Tresco. The one that intrigues me is the karstic limestone landscape of County Clare, where they go to look for wildflowers.

This year, to mark their 20th anniversary, they're running a competition for the best pictures taken on a Brightwater holiday. Winners will end up in their 2013 calendar, with the overall winner receiving £200 in garden vouchers. Closing date 1st October. More details in their Here Comes Summer brochure.

If you're interested in garden holidays, you might also like to consider Boxwood Tours and HF Holidays.

Forget-me-not good; forget-me-not bad

Weeds or flowers? The forget-me-not divides opinion. I can't actually think of a much prettier flower. At this time of year the beds are hazed with a limpid blue, combining superbly well with primroses and cowslips. But then, my forget-me-not is the biennial Myosotis sylvatica. It has soft, strap-like leaves, self-seeds freely and is easy to pull up.

Over at my father-in-law's house, the forget-me-not is completely different. It has rougher, heart-shaped leaves, is perennial, has spread freely, and is a pig to pull up. Husband has just spent days - yes, days - wrestling with roots systems that grow into thick, tough clumps, and don't like to leave the ground. This is not Myosotis, but the false forget-me-not, Brunnera macrophylla or Siberian bugloss - the flowers are remarkably similar, although they lack Mysotis's cheerful splash of yellow in the eye of the flower, and the blue seems just a touch duller.

I like this one too, and, if you need ground cover in dry areas, then Brunnera fits the bill. Not much in the way of weed seedlings will get past the thick foliage of a Brunnera bed. I consulted Graham Rice's Planting the Dry Shade Garden, and, sure enough, he devotes three pages to it, as there are now a number of selections giving silvery leaves and, sometimes, white flowers.

He describes them as great for absent-minded gardeners as they survive in scantily watered containers. However, he also describes them as never invasive, spreading only slowly. Well, all I can say is that it had managed to colonise every corner of a good-sized garden, and gave the impression of a plant that self-seeds with abandon. I'd love to hear whether you've had this problem with them too.

You'd think Brunnera would have been off the list of desirables, but we recently added a different form: Brunnera macrophylla 'Jack Frost'.  Having hunted one down, we're now seeing them everywhere (dammit!). Not surprising, as it is gorgeous. Its green leaves overlaid with silver make a lovely contrast with Dicentra and hellebores at this time of year, and at twilight they shine ethereally. It's also much better behaved. See a variety of silver-leaved Brunneras, and how well they grow in cold conditions, at Northern Shade Planting.