Your comments and tips

28 Sep 08, Grahame (Australia - temperate climate)

Mark and Kim, A word of warning on using old car tyres, while it is a great recycling idea there is a fair bit of evidence around to suggest that they leach cadmium, which you don't really want to be digesting. Also I think that cadmium can become quite concentrated in potatoes, so it's kind of a double whammy. If you are using the mounding technique with straw and compost it should be enough to make a wire mesh border to hold everything in and then you can just dismantle it and use it next year.

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21 Sep 08, Chris (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

Kim, in some parts of the country it's illegal to plant potatoes which aren't certified seed, so you might want to check for your region. I've grown ex-supermarket potatoes (especially more 'unusual' varieties, like kippfler) just by covering them with piles of wilted weeds and topping up the cover as the shoots come through, or the car tyre method like Mark describes.

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21 Sep 08, Mark (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

Place 4 sheets wet newspaper on the ground,add one car tyre. Into the tyre place a good handful manure and water well. Cut up your eye potato into pieces (each with an eye) and dry for a few hours. Place pieces directly onto the wet manure and fill tyre with compost or soil. Cover with sugar cane mulch and stand back!!! Plant dwarf bean seeds under the mulch = 2 crops in one, very quickly.

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17 Sep 08, Kim Flood (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

Do I need to purchase special potato tubers or can I use supermarket potatoes that have developed eyes. What are the ricks with planting old supermarket potatoes (if any).

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16 Sep 08, Steve (Australia - temperate climate)

Can potatoes be grown in old horse manure or does something else need to be added??

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17 Nov 14, Kate (Australia - cool/mountain climate)

I'm new to growing potatoes or much else for that matter. My potatoes had started to sprout nice green plants about 6 cm tall. They seem to have been decimated I think by brush turkeys, I saw one near the patch but am also now thinking that they have raked the patch so other plants have not come up. There were also some fox droppings and also i think some wallaby droppings. Even though it is a bit late I'm going to plant again. How do I protect them?

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14 Sep 08, Addy (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

Sandra, the 28 spotted lady bird - yellow with 26 to 28 black spots - is a pest that eats all the green leafy parts of potatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, pumpkin! I just pick them off and squash them...

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12 Sep 08, Jaci (Australia - temperate climate)

As your potato plants grow higher, continue to mound soil/compost around the stalk higher and higher until it is time to harvest the crop/plant. New tubers grow out from the stalk which grows up out of the mounded soil. Exposed tubers turn green and become inedible. Some people place old tyres around the plants and fill them with compost to continue growth upwards. When the leaves begin to yellow off is about when the new taters are ready to pull up.

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04 Sep 08, Sandra (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

My potatoes are growing rather nicely however in the last couple of days I have noticed that the leaves are looking "skeletal" I did see what I thought was a lady beetle on the leaves- but much bigger. Could this be the culprit? How do I organically control it?

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08 Jan 16, Ange (Australia - sub-tropical climate)

It could be the 28 spotted potato ladybird with out seeing a picture it is hard to say. There are some ladybirds that will eat away at powdery mildew if there is none of that I would most likely say it's the potato lady bird. It will be 6-10mm long, a orange colour with 26-28 dark spots. With the skeletal looking leaves it would be its eggs. There are no chemicals registered for control of the leaf eating ladybirds in home gardens. You will have to remove by hand and squash the larvae and egg clusters. Natural predators that will kill them are parasitic wasp, birds & assassin bugs. So might be wise to encourage these into your yard. Remove any weeds you have in the garden as well. Other plants they will attack are cucumbers, eggplant, pumpkin and tomatoes and some weeds such as nightshades.

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