Good‘s new gardening expert Zoe Carafice is ready and waiting to solve your dilemmas! Each question published on Zoe’s blog or in Good receives a fab prize from Tui Garden. This week: which plant food best nourishes potatoes.
Email your gardening questions to [email protected] and every question answered in Good or on Zoe’s blog will receive a fab prize from Tui Garden Products!
Q: What plant food do you recommend for potatoes? –Rae
A: Potatoes are gross feeders but it’s important to feed them the right stuff to encourage tuber growth rather than leaf growth. To start with, planting into lots of good, rich compost will provide good nutrition for the plants. You can also dig in a few handfuls of blood and bone before you plant. During the growing period, make sure you water your spuds consistently. For an increased yield, you can use a specialised potato fertiliser or you can make your own organic liquid feed by brewing a manure tea.
Strangely enough, potatoes are said to especially love the manure of herbivores (cows, sheep, horses, etc) but it’s important not to put this on fresh as it will burn the roots. Fill a barrel with water and add a few buckets of manure, then cover and leave in the sun for 2-3 weeks. The ‘tea’ can then be watered around your potato plants every few weeks to ensure a bumper crop.
For those of you with limited space, try growing potatoes in an old compost bag or bucket. Plant them now and you’ll have baby spuds for your Christmas dinner!
–Zoe Carafice
Rae has won a bag of Tui Potato Food and Quash Slug & Snail Stoppa from Tui Garden Products!
Tui Potato Food is blended with the ideal balance of nitrogen, phosphorus and potash to promote high yielding potatoes. It boosts tubers after planting and assists in correcting soil consistency, especially important as potatoes grow underground.
Tui Quash Slug & Snail Stoppa is New Zealand’s safest slug and snail bait available. It is not a poison but is deadly to slugs and snails. It will not harm children, pets or wildlife.
Meet Good’s new gardening expert
Zoe Carafice is a landscape designer and photographer. She won gold at the Ellerslie Flower Show in 2007 and has a keen interest in sustainable design and organic gardening.
Email your gardening questions to [email protected] and every question answered in Good or on Zoe’s blog will receive a fab prize from Tui Garden Products!
One question will be featured in each magazine and in each Good Fortnightly e-newsletter. Don’t receive our newsletter? Sign up to get it here!
