Growing Potatoes by the No-Dig Method

When living in a caravan and felling trees came to an end we bought "Ye Olde Country Cottage". Well, it was several hundred years old in spirit, but much aged and consequentially looked about 20 years old. The cottage was not much to look at but the garden blew me away.

When we first looked at the house the seller told us he would show us the garden and set off through the neighbours garden and through an archway into the garden attached to the house. It was about six feet wide at the entrance and appeared to be about twenty feet long opening out to about fifteen feet. Not too impressive. It was planted with medium conifers, shrubs and herbaceous plants and really didn't grab me to much. but as we progressed it opened out into a large circular lawn surrounded by beds and small trees. This was much better and as I was plotting in my head I hardly registered that he was leading us to a gap in the end hedge and leading us through into a larger area, a drying ground, a large shed, greenhouse and small veg beds.

The garden was magic and though I had been reluctant to view and indeed only went because the easiest way to cancel the appointment was to drive round and arrive at the time the appointment was set for and being there may as well view.

The following morning we made an offer that was accepted.

We soon moved in, not much to say about the cottage beyond it being one up one down with a two storey kitchen and bathroom extension on the back. But wow, we had a brilliant garden still with lots of scope and much time was spent planning and planting. However we soon had to accept that there were too many trees and too little space to chase the dream of self sufficiency. Dreams were quickly saved when it became apparent that the local farmer would happily sell us a section of the field at the foot of the garden, In fact, for reasons known only to the farmer, he seemed reluctant to let us pay him!

After harvest I fenced off an area about 200 feet by 200 feet and that was the hardest piece of fencing I've ever done! The ground was like concrete when dry, sending even a pick axe bouncing and any water would turn it into a sticky mess that clung to tools and only reluctantly released them.

It had always been my intention to use deep beds but after taking about a month to prepare one bed about 20 feet by four feet I thought a rethink was in order. I'd read a bit about perma culture and using potato crops to use unbroken ground decided on that as best option.

I'd already been charged with the task of cutting the weeds in the adjacent churchyard two or three times a year, this involved raking the cut in to piles which I quickly made sure were along the back, as near to the garden as I could arrange so that when the field was harvested I could fairly easily drag large amounts into my garden, organic.

Potato planting time arrived and so I trampled down all the growth on the area I had decided to plant. The area was covered with a thick layer of cardboard and newspaper that we'd been saving for aeons and the boxes of chitted potatoes were brought out. With the aid of an old screwdriver and not so old hammer holes were made through the newspaper/cardboard at appropriate spacings and sprouted spuds placed over the holes.

The whole lot was covered with fresh grass clippings (we did have quite a lot of lawn) and then the cutting from the churchyard to a depth of a foot or so. .

As the growing season progressed I continued to cover the area with grass clippings and churchyard cuttings until the foliage was covering the whole patch and I was watering when ever I could. The water did worry me a touch as I thought I was probably making slug heaven but the foliage looked very healthy so I consoled myself with the thought that even if the slugs spoilt the crop the ground would benefit and the mulch would still have uses.

I hadn't ceased working in the woods at this time so most days, as my drive took me past several stables I'd arrive home with several fertilizer bags of horse muck which added to the compost heaps ensured the heaps were almost ready for use before they were built.

As I hadn't planted all the chitted potatoes I thought these might be planted in some fertilizer sacks by way of an experiment. The sacks were rolled down like socks until the wall were about 4 inches high, a layer of compost placed in the bottom and four chitted potatoes placed on top and covered with more compost. As the potato sprouts emerged from the compost, more compost was added and the bag unrolled until the bag was totally unrolled and the potato foliage was growing from the tops of the bags.

As the garden site was not level I had been using old car tyres to build retaining walls, arranged like bricks they left plenty of planting spaces the allowed growth to hide the construction, it worked quite well! Taking an unused tyre, I half filled it with compost and planted about half a dozen tubers in the tyre and as the sprouts grew kept adding compot and tyres until the tower was about four feet tall.

Eventually the time came to see if the slugs had left us some lunch so I prepared myself to check. This to my joy didn't involve digging and sifting, I just lifted the corner of the mulch like a carpet and turned it back. Shock horror, the biggest and best crop of slugs I've ever seen and with a sinking heart I picked up a spud or two. To my surprise and joy the spud was clean and white with not a spot of slug damage or any other complaint! I quickly gathered the whole crop and found not one bit of damage amongst the lot. At this distance in time I don't remember the weight of the crop but I remember, excluding ones too small to use, the yield was impressively greater than the seed used.

The crops from the fertilizer sacks and tyres were not as impressive or clean but probably worthwhile.

The soil under the major crop had changed colour from a sandy yellow to a more pleasing brown and a hand trowel went in easily for half it's length and came out clean. The remains of the mulch was turned into a heap with added horse muck and quickly formed good compost eventually used as a soil conditioner.