Official day 1: Potatoes in February?!

It is the end of February and today, while I was cleaning out the chickens, I heard a voice and looked up, it was Dave, his thick Devonshire accent and my lack of gardening know-how sometimes makes him hard to understand! but after asking to repeat himself an uncomfortable amount of times I figured out that he was asking if I started putting in my potatoes? Now? But surely it's too early?

But no, it turns out there are potatoes called 'early planters', you put them in, well... early. He also lent me a tool, lord only knows what its called, but the only think I can equate it to is the end of a piping bag without a handle... It looks like this...








He instructed me to make holes about 50cm to 70cm apart with this thing and drop one or two potatoes in each hole, then filling the hole with earth and fertiliser, covering with a cloche.

So, I took myself down to Wilco's and grabbed myself a bag, there were quite a few of these early planters to chose from but the one called 'Rocket' took my fancy, I got a huge bag for only £2.50... Far too many, but I can give the rest away.

Anyway, so I get back and after digging over the soil I grabbed the hole making tool that from Dave's plot and stuck it in the ground, it worked perfectly, made a perfect hole to the perfect depth, so I plopped a good sized spud in it and went to make another hole - This is where I discovered a big problem with this tool - the hole was not only bunged up, but now, because of the soggy mud, it was bunged up good a proper and by the third time I'd had to force the mud from the hole I kinda wish I hadn't started, but then again it did make the perfect hole, to the perfect depth... So I carried on.
After finishing the first patch I still had loads of tattles left, so found another spot and did the same, although this time I didn't dig over the spot and the mud stuck in the tool was even worse, I prodded and pushed but, shit, I having pushed that much since I gave birth! But it did make a perfect hole to the perfect depth....

But after messing about for far longer than I should have I had two neat rows with 10 holes and 10 potatoes in each (Dave did suggest that if the potatoes were small to add two, but mine were all a good size). Then I grabbed a load of fertiliser from the bin - yes, the people before left two bins and a water tank too! - and filled in the holes, then I raked the over and stood back and admire my work.

Then I remembered what Dave had said about the plastic cloche - the plastic tunnel thing - and it made me think... I'm sure I'd seen one in the shed and low and behold when I looked there was not just one, but two! Perfect! So after sprinkling a few slug pellets around, - you can't be too careful - I popped the cloche's over (I wish tents could be this easy to put up! It's just basically pull out and stab in the ground) Now potatoes do need a little bit more attention later on, I'll get to that when I get to that.
But basically we should have a good crop of Rocket New Potatoes ready to eat by June.

Until then it's back to the green grocers I suppose...