Last year I tried to grow a giant potato for a world record attempt, and this year I am
going to try again.
So this is how I am going to plant these seed potatoes which is a variety called Kondor
for this years world record attempt, and that's coming right up after this.
Ok guys, so there's a couple of things that we need to do.
And firstly as you can see with this potato, It's gone wrinkly and soft, but that's not
an issue.
So, what we are going to do is we need to reduce this down to just one chit.and the
reason we do that is because the more chits there are the more chances there are of throwing
more potatoes, Now this year I am growing in the Oaklands buckets again and I am going
to grow in a couple of variety sizes, this is a 45 litre and i have got a 65 litre container
there.
and we will also plant up some in a bed as well.
I have got quite a few of these seed potatoes, but what I am going to do guys, first thing
we need to do is we need to take a knife which I am just going to pull out here, and we wanna
look at planting up these potatoes.
Now, this is quite a ice potato it's got some nice really nice chits on it.
So the first thing I am going to do is I am going to cut one of these chits out from in
here that I don't need.
Now that chit, there will grow all by itself.
Ok, we will save that for a later time.
I am going to take off these chits along here, now, there are various ways you can do this
you can cut the potatoes and leave it to form over for a couple of days, this will go, this
will become a nice hard skin over the potato.
but, I am not going to worry about in this particular instance.
I have done it with some of the others, but I wanna show you how i am doing it, and what
I have done here is a nice big cut there and I split those two chits there into two seperate
potatoes.
Now, anything that you can se that may put out another chit like this little lump here,
I am going to cut it off and have rid of it.
because, we want to reduce it down to that one chit.
SO out of this one potato, we now have four potentials that we could grow.
I'm happy now there's no other chits other than that one on here.
Now, when we grow these potatoes we literally going to grow one potato per bucket because
the odea is we want to give it as much space as possible, now the current World Record
is held by a gentleman called Peter Glazebrook and he grew one single potato to 8lb 4oz and
that's the record that we have been trying for for the last few years.
so, these are some of the potatoes that I have kept back in order to do that, the variety
is Kondor now you can do it with other seed potatoes but Kondor are quite hard to get
hold of.
and, I tend to keep my potatoes back each year so that I can try.
I am planting in literally some clover compost.
as you can see here, its not bad stuff and all i am going to do is put about a third
in this bucket and i am going to just stand up and just pour it in.
It is quite a big bucket.
I am going to break up any clumps in it where it has been in the bag and compressed.
There we are, right, now.
I am going to add loads of feed to this guys, now you are not going to do this if you are
just growing to eat your potatoes but I am growing for size, and i need the potato to
get all its food it needs out of this.
now, later on in the series I am going to be bare rooting this potato i am literally
going to take it back out of this bucket break it right down to its roots and i am going
to remove any potatoes that have formed except one, and then possibly replant it back up,
or i may just push my hand in have a fertile around to see if I can find any potatoes in
there.
but, in this instance we are going to add a load of feed, now what i have here is a
load of pelleted potato feed, and we are going to add quite a bit of this to that, and yes
this is going to be an expensive thing, but when your trying for a world record guys you
can't skimp out on the feeds because your plants just wont get enough and I am going
to add a load of blood fish and bone, as well so there is quite a lot of feed in the bottom
of that.
and we are going to give this a really good mixing.
Now this pelleted feed is going to feed over the next couple of months I am also going
to ad a multipurpose feed here and i am going to put a bit of this in, just a little bit
but enough and this is just going to help over the next four or five months.
So, that's our feed in there and our potato will be quite happy in there.
its already got a food store in the potato its in, but it doesn't need that to grow.
This little tiny one here thats got that tiny little bit of potato on ok will grow just
as well as this one will, but this one will have a bit of a kick start.
now, like i said normally when we cut this you can leave that to dry off before planting
some people do, some people don't it's not going to make no difference in this instance
ok. and we literally going to sit this down in that bed just like that.
now the important part here is that we don't wanna break that chit off guys alright.
so, we going to put some more compost over the top of it, very gently breaking up those
clumps as we go and just remember where that chit is and I am going to add feed in layers
as I go.
now, these bags of feed have come from my allotment shop they are a couple of quid a
bag so i am really not bothered about how much I put in here, obviously if your worried
about over feeding then you know thats what you need to do to get giants or don't grow
giants guys alright.
there are guys who will grow absolutely cracking stuff and they wont put so much feed in.
but i am quite a firm believer in you got to feed to get the results.
and, I am happy to feed, so i am going to chuck a little bit more over the top of that,
now this feed is just going to go down into the thing, so now this potato has everything
it needs all this for one little potato.
and hopefully we get some really good results this year out of this bucket. and what we
have done here is we have increased our chances just to bring
that potato down and give it the nutrients it needs but we have reduced it down to that
one chit and because of that one chit it's less likely to throw off too many other potatoes
i'm not saying it won't but if you look up here at last years we pulled potatoes out
that had four and five potatoes on them, and we even bare rooted those plants and removed
all the potatoes and they came secondary.
so I just compacted it down a little bit, not a lot, but because its compost it always
settles and what its done is reduced this soil level to about 1 inch 2.5cm below the
surface.
by doing that we can now fill this with water and we are going to be good to go.
SO what I am going to do is get a piece of string now
and this is just for your benefit not anything to do with the growing side of things and
im literally just going to tie that around one of the handles if it will let me tie it
around one of the handles so you know that this is the particular bucket that we've just
planted now on this video and you should hopefully see what the results will be like later on
in the year.
so, iv'e tied that around im just gonna trim it up so its not sticking out everywhere there
we go guys.
right.
so thats one of the buckets done this year for the giant potatoes.
question of the day.
how many of you are growing giant potatoes this year?
If you are what varieties are you growing?
out your answers in the comments below all the products that I have spoken about today
are going to be in the description below so make sure you visit that as well.
and just to let you guys know yesterday I launched a brand new version of our website
and on there it has our Amazon shop and things like that, it also has a lot of videos that
you can go to and how to's and to do lists for the garden or allotment so make sure you
get across to there and it;'s also going to be blogs that are placed on there in a constant
basis.
So guys, this is how I am doing the giant potatoes this year.
bit different to last year but again this is how I am doing them this year.
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