Watering potato tubers

**Liza** · 17-04-2010, 04:38 AM

Dig down in an unused area and see how damp the soil is at the same depth you planted the spuds.

**Snadger** · 17-04-2010, 06:18 AM

A mulch of some sort will conserve moisture. The critical time for keeping them watered is as the tubers start to form!

**gardendancer** · 17-04-2010, 06:35 AM

Snadger -or anyone else that knows.

How do I know when the tubers are forming?

Thanks

**vicky** · 17-04-2010, 07:56 AM

I wouldn't water yet as if they have only just started to grow you might risk rotting them.
Tubers form at different times with different types eg maincrops water when they flower, first earlies water before flowering (as that's when you lift them) - maybe 2-3 weeks before flowering - I'm guessing - look at the harvesting time on the instructions and water a few weeks before that if dry

**organic** · 17-04-2010, 08:49 PM

I've not given any of my spuds so much as a sip that didn't fall from the sky and yesterday I spotted the first leaves above the ground. Doesn't look like they mind too much.

Thanks for the idea of when to water, Vicky. That's the one bit I really wasn't too sure about.

**solway cropper** · 17-04-2010, 08:56 PM

Don't water them. You need to encourage the roots to go down to find water. If we've still had no rain after another month you could give them a drink. We've had no appreciable rain for weeks here and the spuds look fine.

**Two_Sheds** · 18-04-2010, 07:29 AM

Originally posted by maypril View Post

The weather has been dry so I've been watering the ridges daily. I'm a bit worried that I might be overdoing it.

You are

As the others have said, you don't need to water them at all, unless you have weeks & weeks of drought. This goes for most things (obviously young seedlings need watering until they get established)

Certainly don't water the soil's surface: this encourages not only evaporation (so you waste much of the water) but worse, it encourages the roots to grow near the surface, where they will dry out even quicker. You want the roots to go down, looking for their own water.

If you water at all, water the roots: many of us plant an upturned pop bottle or an empty plant pot near the crops, so you can water into them and it goes to the roots.

If you look at my soil it's bone dry and dusty on the surface - but underneath is very moist.

**SarzWix** · 18-04-2010, 08:52 AM

I've been planting my spuds in trenches over the last few days, and have had to water the tubers in

A spade's depth and the soil is so dry that the sides of the trenches were falling in! Bearing in mind that I'm on clay, I'm quite shocked. Obviously, hot sun and breezy conditions combined with recently dug soil is causing a lot of evaporation...
What I did was put the tubers in, put a layer of soil over them, soaked the soil, then put another layer of dry soil over the top as a dry mulch. Hopefully it'll be enough to get them going!

As someone said up there ^, it might be a good idea to dig down to around the depth the potatoes are planted at, and see if the soil is still damp at that depth. If it is, leave them be, they'll find what they need. If not, then the best course would be to absolutely soak the ground (using your test hole to gauge how much water it takes to get down to the right depth) just once and then mulch with cardboard/ paper/ compost/ straw or even just dry soil to keep the moisture in.
Check the forecast first though, you might find that rain is coming in the next week or so, in which case they'll probably be fine

**Liza** · 18-04-2010, 05:20 PM

Oi!!! thingy who you calling "someone up there " !

How very dare you

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