"Jon Endres, PE" wrote in message et...
Thanks all for your replies. I've always had trouble growing 'taters, I
think it's been a case of overly alkaline soils. Wonder if pine needles
will work well for a potato mulch?

Jon


Last post on this: two other things you should consider for growing in
acidic, sandy soil are strawberries and peas. I am always looking for
low maintenance solutions, and I especially like the fact that wood
chips come free in cubic yards quantities (in trucks, so some access
is needed). I also like that one can spread cubic yards in one hour
with a fork, if the pile is well centered on the site. Finally, I love
the way they retain water and suppress weeds for years at a time. I
could imagine preparing an area with one foot wood chips, long
trellises, and fencing (the fencing goes in after the wood chip truck,
or else make sure you have a really large gate).

I would put down a root barrier around the raspberry patch and the
herb patch (spare vinyl siding works very well). I would try to make
birdnet supports along the blueberry and raspberry rows, and rather
that group them by vine, I would group them by growing season, so I
have only one row to protect at a time (all early season blueberries
go with main season raspberries, etc). I would inject
all chips with three types of mushrooms. I would have a Jerusalem
artichoke patch, and most of the ares would be used for potatoes and
peas. I think that both crops can be had from the same patch, as one
could plant potatoes in May, and peas are gone by early July as the
potatoes leaf out (at least the main season ones). Garlic-radicchio
(either alone or interplanted) patches would also thrive in this
setting. Potatoes, garlic and peas are good for the whole year (peas
freeze incredibly well), and radicchio has also a very long season (I
eat it october-december and april-may).

In another patch, fruit trees also go under a foot of wood chips, with
the Concord grapes, cherry and mulberry trees trained espalier, so
they can be birdnetted efficiently (good luck training a mulberry!).
Under the espalier it will be sunny enough to grow early potatoes, and
under the vase-shapes pear and apple trees it will be shady enough to
have a few logs with other varieties of
mushrooms.

Wood chips are "medium fertility" amendments. They will typically not
change the pH of a soil with a pH in the 5. By medium fertility I mean
that their P/K content after decomposition will be around 200-250 ppm,
or twice what you expect from a very fertile soil. The N content will
vary, depending on the bacterial flora doing the work, but is
generally adequate. A pea crop or two, with the plants shredded and
broadcast over the chips, will be all the extra amendment is needed.