Does a Potatoe Diet Help You Lose Weight?

Potatoes are a great food. High in carbohydrates they have proved a staple diet for people all over the world.

Potatoes make wonderful meals which are low in calories, but high in nutrition.

The healthiest way to cook potatoes is to boil and mash them, with a small amount of butter and milk.

If you like chips, try the oven chips variety as they use less fat.

Crinkle cut chips have the highest ratio of fat because of their larger surface area.

Another excellent way to cook potatoes is to bake them in the oven.

Potatoes can definitely help towards creating a healthy diet compatable with losing weight. Just be careful with the amount of mayonnaise and fat that you add to the potatoes!

More tips on losing weight can be found at Practical Weight Loss

Stopping Slugs Eat Your Potatoes

Slugs can be a real menace, eating your fine lettuce, cabbages and even potatoes.

Don't allow your gardening to be ruined by the slug try these methods for a slug free garden.

Decapitation. Take a spade and go out on a wet morning and cut the old blighters in half. A bit gruesome but its a very organic method and pretty effective. Better sport than chasing an old fox round the countryside anyway.

To make the decapitation method easier, turn over old flat stones and cabbage leaves, you'll probably find quite a few underneath. Cut them in half and who know you will help them to reincarnate as a more advanced animal.

Beer Traps. Find your cheapest beer and pour it into a plastic cup sunk in the ground. The slugs will be attracted by the beer and drown in the liquid. The slugs will be at least happy as they pass into their next incarnation.


Frogs. Frogs are a great friend of the gardener. Frogs will eat plenty of slugs, so consider having a pond next to your potatoes.


See also: Tips for dealing with slugs and snails

Tips on Digging potatoes

There is a new gardening blog worth checking out. Called the Compost heap, it offers tips on gardening and growing flowers.

Digging is a crucial element of growing potatoes and here is an article for the basics of digging

Also useful tips on dealing with slug and snails

Suggestions for the new site:

Think carefully about titles. For example:

• Bits of Jargon is better as 'Bits of Gardening Jargon'

Look forward to seeing more articles about gardening and photos of flowers.

The Importance of Manure

I think that in the growing of potatoes, we should never underestimate the importance of a good manuring.

Now, your first question may be - Where to get the manure? Well, why not try your local stables; if your lucky they will have a pile of well rotted manure.

If they have only fresh manure, you can still use that to make your very own manure pile. In a few months it will be sweet smelling and ready to sprinkle on your potato patch

• Top Tip: If you use your Dad's new Mercedes to transport the fresh manure, you might like to put it in bags first.

How To Grow Potatoes

To Grow Potatoes it is important to have the following ingredients

1. Potatoe Seed.

2. Spade

3. Some soil to put said potatoe seeds into.

4. Then use Spade to create a hole for potatoes.

5. Watch Them Grow.!