Potato Calculator

Growing your seed potatoes

You should use the following distances for your trenches:

Sprinkle 2oz of your potato fertiliser for each metre length of your trench, and gently fork the fertiliser into the soil.

If you have problems with slugs, now is the time add slug pellets to the trench (following the recommended dosage). In July/August, you can use Nemaslug, which are nematodes designed to attack slugs and stop the problem.

First Earlies should be planted 10 inches apart along your drill; the space between drills should be around 24 inches. Second Earlies and Maincrops should be planted 15 inches apart with a space of 28 inches between the drills.

Use the soil that you have already taken out of the trench and carefully scatter it on top of the potatoes until the trench is once again flat.

Once the plants start to grow through, you should earth them up. Earthing up is best done with a garden hoe: the aim is to form a peaked ridge with the loose soil at the edge of the trench to prevent your potatoes turning green which would