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Potato Shaws/haulms - composting and uses

 
Posts: 6
Location: Scotland
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New to permaculture and just exploring and learning.  We have two large polytunnels of potatoes to harvest.   Way too many shaws/haulms to put on small composting station.    Looking for ideas to recycle them.   There will be another crop going staring into polytunnels so they have to be composted or used out with that area.  I’m wondering if they can be mulched in a mulched?  Or can the leaves be used for fermented plant juice, or plant teas or mulching around plantS like comfrey leaves.  I’m based in Scotland.  Thanks!
 
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Hi, Sassie

Welcome to the forum!

I would try using them as green manure on the garden beds or mixing them with mulch.

Sassie said, "can the leaves be used for fermented plant juice, or plant teas or mulching around plantS like comfrey leaves.



If you are talking about a ferment or tea to pour over the garden that might make a great experiment, I doubt it would have the same effect as comfrey.

Comfrey (Symphytum species) is a great dynamic accumulator where tomato leaves may not be.

It sounds like you are having great success with potatoes.

 
Sas Gardener
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Hi Anne,

Thanks  for your warm welcome and reply!   Unfortunately I don’t have an any free beds I can mulch.  I’m doing a no dig experiment with part o fly dads garden and he is a traditional gardener.  We have grown potatoes for years as a small commercial sideline to solely supply a local farm shop.  I did do a search on permaculture and potato haulms but it didn’t bring up anything.   I might try and see if they will go through the mulcher without getting stuck.  The stalks are very fibrous though.
 
Anne Miller
steward
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I wasn't thinking of using a mulching machine to mix with the mulch though that might work.

Do you have any unused corners of your yard that you can just put the cut potato plants in and just forget about them?

That way they will compost themselves over time and when you need some brown manure for your compost pile, this will by then be brown manure.

Just a thought.
 
Sas Gardener
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It will temporarily be piled up next to the composting station but we will need access to that space.  I was assuming potato haulms were counted as green waste rather than brown waste so had been looking on brown waste such as woodchip and cardboard to layer with then green waste - grass cuttings, veg peelings, and soft plant foliage, etc.   But after your comment I’m wondering if the haulms are counted as brown waste and not green?
 
Anne Miller
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Tomato plants are green manure though my idea was to let them dry out thus becoming brown manure. Or at least that was my assumption.

Sort of like grass is green manure though when it dries out it becomes hay and thus brown manure.
 
Sas Gardener
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That makes sense!🙂
 
steward and tree herder
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I wonder how the OP got on with composting the haulms in the end? The thing I worry about (also based in Scotland) is blight overwintering on poorly composted plant material. Here I am almost mild enough that I'm worried the plants may survive and regrow, even on the surface. Maybe there is no point worrying since blight tends to be everywhere here anyway however hygienic one tries to be.
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