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Using spent potato foliage as mulch

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  • Using spent potato foliage as mulch

    Like everyone else, I'm pulling up potatoes at a rate of knotts just now. As I have too many patches of bare earth in my veg patch (result of rather enthusiastic rotavating), I'm laying the potato foliage on the ground between areas of planting. I'm expecting it will help to reduce the earth drying out, and as it breaks down will add something to the soil.

    Am I really barking up the wrong tree, risking disease or mildew or anything? Bit by bit I'm getting things planted in the bare patches and allowing weeds I eat such shepherd's purse, dandelions and heal-all to spread. I started off with a regimented rows of veg mentality, which left me with these bare patches in-between, then read Alys Fowler's The Edible Garden and was instantly converted to mixing it all up!
    Is there anything that isn't made better by half an hour pottering in the veg patch?

  • #2
    Its fine to use the foliage as mulch in fact thats one of the reasons I grow potatoes in newly turned ground, as they help cover ground and suppress weeds.
    I'm only here cos I got on the wrong bus.

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    • #3
      I'm a great fan of mixing it all up That's what Nature would do and you can't regiment Nature. Likewise, Nature makes leaves fall from trees onto the ground below and plants to shrivel and die in Autumn. Nobody rakes those up and tidies them into heaps - so why should we?
      Complete waste of energy in my book

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      • #4
        Oh great, thanks. I'm very happy to follow my nose on the whole, but am blissfully ignorant of the received wisdom on planting and just wanted to make sure I wasn't guaranteeing wholesale crop blight or something!
        Is there anything that isn't made better by half an hour pottering in the veg patch?

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        • #5
          Its only blight foliage you don't want to lay on the ground or put in the compost for that matter. It will allow the fungus to remain in the soil if you do. Best to burn it.
          I'm only here cos I got on the wrong bus.

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          • #6
            Yes, I just put all the foliage that isn't eaten back onto the garden beds, and mix everything up, and add flowering plants and smelly ones, onions, garlic, and smelly flowers. Otherwise it's an All you can eat Buffet for the insects. If they find one plant in a row of plants, they need look no further. I still have pests, but they have to work harder for their meals
            Ali

            My blog: feral007.com/countrylife/

            Some days it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints!

            One bit of old folklore wisdom says to plant tomatoes when the soil is warm enough to sit on with bare buttocks. In surburban areas, use the back of your wrist. Jackie French

            Member of the Eastern Branch of the Darn Under Nutter's Club

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            • #7
              Originally posted by MrsCordial View Post
              I'm laying the potato foliage on the ground between areas of planting. ... it will help to reduce the earth drying out, and ... add something to the soil.
              You're right, and that's what I do. All foliage (weeds, green manures, crops) get chopped up a bit then dropped on the soil

              Originally posted by MrsCordial View Post
              wanted to make sure I wasn't guaranteeing wholesale crop blight or something!
              Blight doesn't survive on dead tissue, so your leaves aren't going to infect anything else, even if they did have blight spores on them. The spores would die with the leaves
              All gardeners know better than other gardeners." -- Chinese Proverb.

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