Stop Potato Rot - The best Tip for Growing Potatoes in the Subtropics

Potato, potato, you say tomato and I'll say tomato, but I think we both say potato, alrighty? And that's a potato. Who doesn't like potatoes? So who lives in the subtropics and has been trying to grow potatoes without success? Put your hand up. Yeah. So if you've been having problems growing potatoes in subtropics, I think this is your lucky day. Everyone loves potatoes. G'day Jeff, how's it going? It's good. Yeah? Yeah, beautiful day. It is a beautiful day today. But you've been growing potatoes for 30 years. Yep, 30 years in Australia. How many years have you had success growing potatoes? Probably the last 20, but yeah, maybe 15. Took me a while. So you do have a method. I do. Welcome back to the Weedy Garden. Not in the Weedy Garden. I mean Jeff Lawton's garden. I know Jeff. Yep, that's right. This is going to be a video about potatoes, see? This is meet the spuds. We're going to meet the spuds here in Jeff's garden today. I know there's a lot of people out there in the subtropics that try to grow potatoes. Like I've been trying in the Weedy Garden for probably six years and I haven't really had any success because they just keep rotting. But you've got a system that works, don't you Jeff? Yeah, trial and error got me there in the end. For a while I was harvesting less potatoes than I was planting the seed. I would have been better off eating the seed potatoes I was putting in. That was demoralizing. It is demoralizing. And I'm just following the book. I just followed the book. The book's wrong when it comes to the subtropics. Yeah. I can guarantee that. It works in Denmark. In Denmark you just chuck your potatoes in the ground in the springtime and bury them and you've got potatoes. Where I'm from in England it was a pride and joy, your potatoes. And there were many you could grow. There are only some you can grow here. What have we got here, Jeff? A subago. One of the easiest ones to grow. I started success with subago. Subago. I'm going to take some of these potatoes home with me, Jeff, and I'm going to try and plant them in different ways. Yeah. I'm actually thinking to get some sheet wire and make a circle out of it and then put potatoes in and cover them up with hay, maybe a handful of compost, and just keep piling the hay on and have the potatoes kind of around the outside and they're going to kind of grow on the out. Have you tried that method? Yeah. Did it work? It turned into slush. It turned into slush, did it? Yeah. Or you put a tarp over the top and see that you've probably made some good alcohol. We don't want alcohol, we want spuds. I love spuds. Yeah. I mean, it's part of our heritage, although they're Peruvian. So you've got a technique that has been working for you and it's about keeping them up so they don't get soggy. Yeah. Keep them well drained. First off, I'm going to count them. We need to know how many. There's two kilos here. Yeah. And they're certified seed potatoes. I don't take any risk with the spuds. Righto. Because they're so valuable. Like this. It's called a seed potato. No particular reason, but it's been certified it has no disease. Okay. So you're not going to get a potato disease in the garden, which can be a problem for a long time. Yeah, yeah. So I'm going to put them about 300 millipar, between 200 and 300 millipar in the row. So I want to know the length I've got here in potatoes. And it depends how big the seed potatoes are. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15. Come back. 16, 17, 18, 19. 19 spuds? Yeah. So 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. About six metres. Yeah. So three potatoes to a metre. So I've put them in threes so we can see how many metres it is. It's about six metres of spuds here. And you're going to take some of them. Well, I was going to take some of them. You should. I'll take half of them. Yeah, go on then. I'll put these in my bag and I'll take these home. Shall we do a fun little thing? What? And we'll make another video when we harvest and we'll see how many kilos we get each. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Can I ask you a question? Yeah. If I've got this potato and I plant it next to this potato, is this one going to give me more potatoes because it's bigger than this one? No, but this one might be more vigorous because it's got the starch reserve. It just might be a little bit stronger. But if they get up together, they'll produce about the same. Okay. Can I chop this one in half and make two out of it? Yes, but in this climate I wouldn't take any risks because if that cut starts to cause any rot, there's your problem. Yeah. It's always avoid the rot. I don't break them at all. You can cut them and get the wet cut in some lime and kind of seal it. There's all those tricks. Because I take my potatoes so serious and I live in the subtropics where it's not easy to get them right, I don't take one risk, not one risk. It means too much to me. When I harvest it, there's nothing like digging them out and getting potatoes coming out of the ground. It's in our sort of European heritage. So I'll take these ones home. One, two, three. You'll give me the big ones. That's nice. Four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Well, we've got to be fair. If I'm planting ten and you're planting nine, I've got like… That's all right. We'll count them in. We'll count them out. Yeah, we'll count them in. We'll count them out. So I'll take these home to the Weedy Garden. All right. And we'll plant them up in my garden. All right. So what is the special technique? All right. Let's get these out of the way. Okay. And we'll put them with the garlic next door in a minute. Yeah. Don't you start sneaking them off on me, right? Yeah. So the book says you dig a trench. Yeah. You plant them at the bottom of the trench. Yeah. And as they grow, you hill them up. Yeah. What that encourages is the bottom of the trench to get wet. Yeah. All right. And it's just the opposite to a well-drained situation. So I go the other way round. I dig a trench and make two ridges either side. And I plant in the top, right in the top. And I don't disturb them. I leave them all alone. I plant them roughly the depth of the potato down. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to just dig this to either side. And I fill the trench with compost. Now, I get kind of fussy about the trench. So I'm going to dig this over and loosen it up a bit. What's the best time to plant potatoes in this area, Jeff? Start of winter. Autumn, really. And we can always get it wrong because you can get a frost when you don't expect it. Or you can get a flood when you don't expect it. That's this climate. So you don't take any risks. June the 21st, 22nd, 23rd. Those three days. They're the shortest days. Yeah. It's too early to plant them now. Sorry, too late. That's too late. You can. You can still plant them. If we get a dry spring and not too wet a spring, they can go. They can be in the ground all the way. I've had potatoes in this garden in the ground in January without rotting. But the plant had already died off and were just potatoes left in the ground residual. Yeah. But on a lot of years, they would have just been mush. Are they going to grow back next year if they stay in the ground? Potentially, yeah. But I still don't want to do that. I want to get seed potatoes. Yeah. Do you always get seed potatoes? Do you? Yeah. In this climate, there's only a few types. Sabago. Yeah, which is what we've got today. And then my wife proved you could grow red ones. We grew Pontiac and Desiree. Redskins. And then Nikolai, which are a bit like a bit like Sabago. And then Dutch cream and Kipler. They're kind of gourmet. Yeah. You don't have any of those here, do you? Yeah. I have Dutch cream, no Kipler yet. You already put them in, have you? Yeah, Dutch cream and Nikolai are in. And Sabago, these are the first Sabagos going in. And I will keep planning for the next month if I can get the potatoes. Yeah. Okay. This is very sandy, isn't it? I have sandy soil, well-drained sandy soil. Yeah. But it's got a lot of compost over the years and a lot of organic matter. But that's not relevant. In any of the soils, I've found the same system works. It's the best you can do. I'm going to be a bit fussy about the way I rake it up. I'm going to get a nice furrow down there. You can't always just listen to what the book says unless the book is definitely saying it's this climate. Yeah. Specifically. And we like potatoes because we're European descent. They're a sentimental crop to us, security crop, comfort food. So we expect that to be our starch. We're actually, in this climate, cassava, climbing yam, taro, sweet potato, even cooking banana, they're our starch. If you want to survive, you don't want to rely on potatoes. But we like potatoes, so we're going to want to find a way to grow our sentimental starch crop. It's really our bulk calorie crop. In your garden, you need to know what's your bulk calorie crop. Pumpkin is a pretty good one here, too. Pumpkin goes wild. We've got plenty of rampant pumpkin out there. They're pretty fit up with eating pumpkin every single day. It gets more and more difficult as you get closer to the tropics. Subtropics, it's hard enough. What is it about it that the potatoes don't like? Is it the heat? They're originally from the high Andes, and they have just a cool, warm climate. It's more of an equatorial climate. It doesn't really have the same seasons, but it's the moisture. It's just the humidity. The humidity is too much. It's not just the rain. So you said you didn't want to build a trench here, but you're just building a trench here. What are you doing? That's in between the potatoes. You're not tricking me, are you? No, I'm not tricking you. Okay. It's a trench in a different position. Yeah. I'm getting pretty fussy about how I pad it up and make it stay. That's where it's going to go, but I'm just going to measure them out. So they need to be about, that's about 30 centimetres apart. Yeah, 20 to 30 centimetres. Yeah. Give them enough room to spread a few roots out there. Yeah. Okay, so that's the position where they're going, in the mound. Now I'm going to put them down. In the mound, on the mound. On the mound. Yeah. But they're going in there now. All right, so we just dig them down like, so they're sitting about a potato length. Yeah. Underneath the ground. Okay. I'll just pad this up. Now we're going to feed them. This is one of my 18-day compost, but it was done in 12 days. That's a quickie. What? Yeah, real fast one. So now we're putting, well you are putting compost. All the way to the top. Okay. And that's the last thing I do. I don't disturb them after that. So what do you reckon is a good crop from one potato? How many potatoes do we want to get out of one potato? I'm happy if I get five or six. Yeah. But of course, if you're in a cold climate, you're looking at eight and nines and tens and twelves. Yeah, really. Don't think about that. It ain't going to happen. Look at this one. Look at that. Yeah. It's a sign of vitality. It is a sign of vitality. So how do you make a compost in 12 days? What's the rule? Turn it every single day and keep your eye on it very carefully. Really? Make sure the heat is exactly right. Adjust it if you have to. Do you want to get it as hot as you can or? No, you want to get it to about... 70? 70 max. Between 50 and 70 is what you need. How hot can a compost get? They can go, if you get a lot of nitrogen, you'll go up to 100 degrees. Really? It's just about toxic then. Yeah. It's not good for the soil at all. It's actually dangerous. Ah, is it? To grow another crop in. It won't have used it all. No, no. So I'm going to put a little bit more on now. It's going to also go down the sides a bit. Okay. We're going to cover the sides a bit. Alright. So these potatoes, they're going to grow into this compost and you'll be picking out potatoes from the middle here, will you? No, they'll mostly be in the mound. Okay. But I think their hair roots are feeding in there. Yeah. The potatoes themselves are going to be in the mound. Yeah. I don't think it's a healthy environment for them. It's, again, too moist. Yeah. Too much fungi, too much bacteria. It's just too alive. So they sort of stay out of it, but they feed on it, I think. Okay. Look, that's that rare whippersnapper worm. See that one? They're pretty plastic, those ones. I've been trying to grow potatoes in the weedy garden five seasons now and I'm lucky to get two potatoes off one. I'm so frustrated. It is very frustrating. So they're very valuable in my garden. Yeah. But I eat a lot of potatoes. Yeah. I'm going to have to make some more potato beds, too. Yeah. Because if I can get my head around growing potatoes successfully, then I'm a happy gardener. Yeah. What's a good way to store them, Geoff? You've got to put them in a barrel, usually a plastic barrel. Like a 20-litre barrel? Well, more if you've got 200 litres. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Then place your potatoes so they're not touching each other and they're separated by 20 mil. Then you cover them all up and put another 50 mil on top and then separate again. It's a lot of work, but if you get it right, they'll store through. If you get it wrong, it turns into a mush barrel. A mush barrel. Yeah. And you can't really make alcohol out of it by then, can you? No, it's gone way past that. It's too much. It's pretty dangerous at that time. So how many days are we waiting until harvest time, Geoff? About 120 days to the first potatoes. You're kidding me. Look at these worms. Hey, hey. Look. Hitchhikers coming to do a job. That's what happens when you leave mulch on the ground in my garden. Yeah, yeah. About 120 days. Yeah. And now, if we don't get a really wet winter, we can leave them in the ground. But as soon as we start getting warm weather and rain, it's deadly. You've got to get them out. So 120 days, that's about the first week of September? Yeah. Second week of September? Yeah. All right. So 120 days from now, I'll come back with a little bucket with the potatoes I got in. Yeah. I got out of mine. A big bucket. Hopefully a big bucket. And I'll come out and we'll harvest yours and we'll weigh them. Yeah. And we'll see if they've got the same amount of potatoes. I think I'll do mine the same way. Ah, okay. I think I'll do mine the same way. Well, I've got an extra trick that I could add in here. You've got an extra trick? Yeah, it's a bit of an Irish trick. Okay. What is that? Not many Englishmen are going to give you an Irish trick. You want me to show you? Yeah, I'd love to. Come on then. I always like to learn tricks. You know that. Weedy Garden loves tricks. Come on. You going down this way? Yeah. Okay. You ready? I'm coming. Okay. And they say in Ireland, one wheelbarrow full of donkey poop is equal to one wheelbarrow of potatoes. Oh, really? Yeah. So I got the donkeys in specially. And we'll see this year if it actually works. Okay. I made my compost with donkey manure. Oh, did you? As one of the components. So that one we just put on? Yeah. Okay. And you should see what it looks like when you run over it with a lawnmower. Yeah. It's a compost material of dyke. It's kind of fibry and it breaks up into this fluff. I mean, if you're a compost connoisseur, this ingredient is the best I've ever seen. Oh, yeah? This is like, oh, wow. Look at this stuff. So it had to go in the compost and then it had to go to the potatoes. They'll run on the smallest bit of grass. They're desert animals. They cost nothing to run. They live to 70 to 80 years running on nothing and providing you with great manure, particularly good for potatoes. Looks like horse manure. That might be horse manure, actually, because there's a horse in there. There is a horse in there. All right. So I'm going to take these potatoes back home to the Weedy Garden. We'll mark this one off. We'll count this one out and we'll count your one out. Experiment bed number one. Yeah. Can I just ask you another question? Do you teach how to grow potatoes on the PDC? Oh, yeah. We go to climate-specific gardening. Really? Yeah. You know what I was thinking, Geoff? I did your PDC four or five years ago, but I was kind of too busy making videos about it that I didn't finish my PDC. So I'm going to do it again, but I'm thinking I might share what I'm learning on my channel. People need to know what it is. Yeah. And there's no one better to show you on film than this guy. Yeah. So I'll do the PDC and you guys can follow what I'm learning. I won't give away everything, but that's impossible. It's an eight-month course. 18 weeks. You've got a whole 12 months to finish your final design exercise, which we help you with. Yeah. I look forward to it, Geoff. No worries. Be good. I really do, mate. Thanks for showing me one of your secrets here, or two of your secrets. I don't have donkeys, so. You might need them. I'm going to go back and I'll see you guys back in my garden. Alrighty? Thanks, Geoff. My pleasure. We'll do it like we did when we first met. I've got a handful of potatoes. So I'm back here in the Weedy Garden and I've got my potatoes. So I'm going to just put these potatoes here because I've planted potatoes already around the outside, see, and these ones I've actually chopped in half. Some of them are a little bit slow, but I'm going to try the technique that Geoff suggested and I'm going to make another mound up here and I'm going to plant these potatoes around the top of the mound. In the meantime, I'm just going to mount these up that have grown up a little bit because I did dig a trench down here. So I'll mound these up, see, like this and the same here. Okay, I just keep doing this all the way around. So I'm going to make a mound now. Look at all the worms. Sorry if I've hit any of you guys. Looks like I'm going to have to do a little mound there because I've got one more. I've got some nice compost here now to put in that hole. This might be a nice way to plant potatoes, but geez, there's a lot of work involved in this if you think about it. All the time that I've used to make this compost. It's a lot of energy, a lot of sweat, but this compost is going to last more than just this crop of potatoes. This is going to last a couple of years. There's lots of worms in here and lots of beautiful organic matter. Alrighty, now a bit of hay. So we'll come back in September and harvest them and then we'll take them over to Geoff. We've both got pretty good soil. We both live in the same environment, so I think it'll be quite interesting to see what's going to happen. So I'll do the PDC and you guys can follow what I'm learning. I won't give away everything, but that's impossible.