It’s been a busy time at Bannisters’ Farm. Conditions have been right, so we’ve had the planting team in to plant the potatoes. A part of the farming calendar that’s particularly significant to us, of course, and we never tire of the sense of occasion inspired by the gathering of all the farm machinery. It always feels like quite an event!

In this first video you can see the stone separating machine lifting the soil, sieving out the large stones, and clods and depositing them into the furrow, creating a good tilth for the seed potatoes to be planted.

This operation is always accompanied by flocks of gulls, keen to scavenge the worms that have been unearthed by the machinery!

The next video shows the potato planting machine, full of seed potatoes. The planter makes two shallow grooves in the bed and drops the seed potatoes, evenly spaced, before covering with soil with a double-sided ridging device. Potatoes have to be well covered with soil so that as the new tubers develop they are protected from light.

Hopefully we’ll have some green shoots to show you soon, let’s just hope this mild weather continues!

Rob