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How to Grow Potatoes in the Allotment and Garden | Step-by-Step Guide
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Nov 13, 2024
🌿 How to Grow Potatoes in the Allotment and Garden | Step-by-Step Guide From chitting to harvest — here’s everything you need to know about growing your own delicious potatoes! 🧤🌱 In this step-by-step guide, I walk you through the full potato-growing process. Whether you're planting in the ground or in containers, you'll learn how to prep seed potatoes, plant them properly, earth up, and when to harvest for the best yields. What’s your go-to potato variety for home growing? #GrowPotatoes #AllotmentTips #PotatoPlanting #GrowYourOwn #GardeningWithBen #UKGardener #AllotmentGuide #PotatoHarvest
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0:00
hello and welcome to gardening with
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previous episodes sit back grab a brew
0:21
and let's enjoy today's episode hello
0:25
everyone and welcome back to gardening
0:28
with Ben for a new episode a day well
0:32
I'm back on night shift so that means
0:34
I'm not at the allotment this week even
0:37
though the weather has turned absolutely
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fantastic this week I think the
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temperatures are going to be like 14° or
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something this week so it'll get pretty
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warm down at the allotment in the shed
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and stuff like that so the seeds that
0:51
we've got growing I'm hoping that they
0:53
do start to germinate more and get
0:57
growing more and hopefully come along a
1:00
bit further and get Get Growing really
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because that's what we want we want
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everything to start coming along and
1:06
start growing now and we really do need
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to start looking at getting my summer
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seeds soon and getting all them growing
1:15
uh especially all my flowers and
1:17
everything like that and in one of our
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episodes we're going to talk about some
1:21
of the best flowers to grow at the
1:24
allotment hopefully the plan is to be
1:27
back down at the allotment on Saturday
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for three days and hopefully we'll get
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plenty done in them three days and
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hopefully the weather will still be
1:36
lovely and we'll hopefully get plenty
1:39
done down there so yeah I'm going to be
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looking at getting my compost and
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getting all my seeds soon possibly next
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week uh we'll hopefully start to look
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into doing that now because we need to
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get moving and get cracking because
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time's starting to fly now and these
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jobs need doing and getting the seeds
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sewn is a massive job you don't realize
2:03
how big a job it is sewing all the seeds
2:05
and getting all them ready for the year
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ahead so we need to look into doing that
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so what are we talking about today we're
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going to be talking about potatoes
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growing potatoes
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yep if you're new to allotments growing
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potatoes can
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be one of the easiest things to try and
2:29
grow
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to be honest because it's one of the
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first things and straightforward things
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that you can grow on a lotman or in a
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garden and potatoes are something
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everybody seems to have great success
2:44
with not many people have issues with
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potatoes but there are a few tips out
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there for growing decent potatoes and
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we're going to be sharing some with you
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today in today's episode so sit back
2:58
relax and enjoy today's
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podcast so growing potatoes Now
3:05
everywhere you'll be looking in the
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garden centers in the shops they will be
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starting to sell seed potatoes if not
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some are probably selling out of them
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now because they've been on sale for
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quite a while and people are going to be
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getting ready for planting them and what
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a lot of gardeners do is they like to
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chit the potatoes first and when they
3:30
mean chitting potatoes it means putting
3:33
the potatoes in like egg boxes uh cuz
3:37
the potatoes fit nicely in them gaps um
3:40
and then they'll put them in a light
3:43
room like a shed or a greenhouse it
3:45
needs to be frost free uh and they will
3:49
start to send out their Sprouts it's a
3:52
way of encouraging the potato to start
3:55
growing and start producing those shoes
3:59
on it so that when you plant them
4:01
they've got a head start in growing
4:05
because that can take a while for them
4:07
to start sprouting don't put them in a
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dark room because that sends them all uh
4:13
all the shoots weedy and horrible and
4:15
stuff like that but a lot of people tend
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to chip them first to get them
4:20
started now when it comes to planting
4:25
potatoes I tend
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to stick with
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planting mine on Good Friday it's an old
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wife's taale planting potatoes on Good
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Friday as it moves every month obviously
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every year um The Good Friday can change
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from year to year one year it can be
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really early one year it can be really
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late but it's all to do with the moon
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and it's an old myth's tale so that's
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what I've always stuck with doing on my
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allotment and I I get great success with
4:57
my potatoes and hopefully I'll get great
5:00
success this year now when you come to
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planting your
5:04
potatoes um a lot of people say it's
5:07
good to plant potatoes where it's like a
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new piece of ground that you've not used
5:12
before because it helps break up the
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soil uh from all the digging and
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everything and from the potatoes growing
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in it it helps break it up and makes it
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a lot better for future growing in and
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there's two methods of ways that you can
5:29
plant your
5:30
potatoes um there the one which is the
5:34
hardest work is digging a trench now the
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trench needs to be at least a spade and
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a half deep because the deeper that you
5:45
plant them the more potatoes you've got
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the chance of growing
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and you need to make sure that they
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spaced out evenly so that they've got
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space to grow uh possibly a spade and a
5:58
half with width apart the potatoes and
6:02
mark them all out and plant them all in
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your trench now some people put manure
6:07
in it but I've read that putting manure
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in it can rot the potatoes so I've never
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put manure in mine and I've still had
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great success with growing them but some
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people do that or some people put
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newspaper in as well uh so there's
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plenty of different tips on growing them
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but you can also pick up potato
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fertilizer which is good for growing the
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potatoes as well so have a look around
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and see what you can get for planting
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your
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potatoes now once you've planted your
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potatoes what you need to do is you need
6:42
to back fill all the soil back in and
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obviously Mark out your roots because
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they're not going to be popping through
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the ground for a long time so you need
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to know where you've planted them and
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you can always plant other stuff in
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between the potatoes as a space f you
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can plant lettuce because that'll be
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ready before then plant beetroot
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anything that will grow before the
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potato as a harvest you can use as a
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space filler and using space wisely is
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definitely a good option so once you've
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got all those
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planted and maybe about a month a couple
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of months afterwards you will start to
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see the shoots popping out of the top of
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the soil
7:30
now if it's still cold when the shoots
7:33
are popping out you need to make sure
7:36
that you Heap the soil up over the top
7:39
of the Sho again this will encourage
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more potatoes because there's more space
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for them to fill and produce the
7:49
potatoes but also it stops the potato
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plants from getting Frost damage now one
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year A couple of years ago it were is we
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had a very late Frost and I noticed a
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lot of people getting the
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potatoes wiped out by the frost because
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they'd not got them heaped up or they
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planted them too early and stuff like
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that and they lost it scorched all the
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plants they all went black and it
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damaged a lot of the potato plants now
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that is something that you don't want to
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do so make sure that you Heap them up
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and keep keep them heaped up for as long
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as possible and you will notice
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that they'll start to send out purple
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flowers and stuff like that the potato
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plants and they do look very pretty and
8:44
each type of potatoes take so long to
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grow whether it be earlies latees
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or any other types of potatoes they can
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take quite a while to grow now the
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packet that you purchased them on will
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tell you how long long it takes for the
9:00
potatoes to grow but my rule of thumb is
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I usually wait for the potato plant to
9:07
die off that's when I know that they are
9:09
ready to harvest so that is when I tend
9:12
to harvest my potatoes and also you'll
9:15
notice on the potato plants that they do
9:18
send out these tomato looking fruit on
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them now the thing is do not eat them
9:26
they are poisonous and they can give you
9:28
a really bad upset stomach they're not
9:30
edible whatsoever so don't eat them and
9:34
another reason why you heat the soil up
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is because you don't want the potatoes
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going green because if your potatoes go
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green they can be poisonous as well and
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make you very sick so that is another
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reason why you Heap up
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potatoes but yeah there's definitely a
9:54
good way of growing potatoes and you can
9:57
have great success in growing them
10:00
and another method of growing potatoes
10:02
is in tubs now I always grow my potatoes
10:06
in tubs over Christmas and have a
10:09
Christmas Harvest because you can grow
10:11
potatoes lat on in the poly tunnel and
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you can get a crop over Christmas so you
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can keep growing potatoes all the way
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through up until winter and getting
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crops that way but obviously if you're
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growing them in tubs all you need to do
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is just put a couple of potatoes in a
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bucket and fill it up with soil you
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don't have to Heap it up or anything
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just make sure that there's drainage
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holes in the tubs when you're planting
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them and that you do keep them watered
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because they will dry out faster so you
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need some nice big tubs to grow the
10:46
potatoes in and then you'll get lots of
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potatoes in them sometimes they're a lot
10:50
smaller because they've not got as much
10:51
space to grow but you can get a great
10:54
harvest of potatoes in tubs so if you've
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not got ground to grow potatoes in like
11:00
an alotment or a big Garden get some big
11:03
tubs and get some planted in there and
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I've had great success my dad's had
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great success and yeah you can get a
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decent crop of
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potatoes
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now there's obviously you can grow them
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from seed
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potatoes but some people do grow them
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from the shop bought potatoes because if
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they've started growing shoots of them
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people think oh just throw them in
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and see how they get on or if there's a
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variety that you enjoy in the
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supermarket and you want some more you
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might think well I can't purchase these
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ones why not try growing these ones from
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the supermarket now some people say you
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shouldn't do it because they're not
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disease resistant and they can get
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diseased quite easily now my dad he
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grows them from the supermarket ones
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every single year and he has some
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fantastic crops from them and sometimes
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they can be a lot cheaper to buy than
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they would do in Sea potatoes so it's up
12:05
to you what you want to try whether you
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want to try this seed potatoes what you
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get in garden centers or whether you
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want to use a supermarket variety ones
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the choice is up to you so yeah it's
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quite good growing potatoes it can be
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quite fun and definitely rewarding you
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can get a lot of potatoes for your
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money's worth if you look after the
12:26
plants very well and just remember
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remember to keep them weed free because
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the more the weeds are there the more
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they'll take all the nutrients and the
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goodness from the soil which you don't
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want whatsoever you want them to be weed
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free so that they've got all the
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nutrients and all the water from the
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soil to grow some decent potatoes with
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so yeah that has been our little
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conversation today talking about how to
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grow potatoes and having great success
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with them and also growing potatoes they
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are so much more tastier than
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Supermarket potatoes trust me until
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you've grown a potato and tasted it you
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won't realize what you have been missing
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out on they are absolutely delicious and
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the Skins just come off them so easy
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when you're washing them and they just
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melt in your mouth the potatoes so yeah
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have a try growing potatoes let me know
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if it's your first year and you're going
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to give them a try so until next time
13:28
remember keep keep smiling keep
13:30
gardening and keep listening to
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