Potatoes

[Shaun PearceParticipant]

Morning all,

I’m just after a little advice on potatoes. I normally grow a large amount of main crop for storing but after a few years on poor crops due to blight and pests I’m thinking of only growing earlys and second earlys.

What’s the best veriaty of early that can also grow onto say a second early or larger spud. I’m not growing anywhere near as much because it take up far too much space but want a longer crop

[charlesModerator]

First Earlies are lower yielding, I would grow Charlotte or Athlete or Estime or Kestrel.

[Don FoleyParticipant]

Hi Shaun,

I like you don’t want to devote a lot of space to potatoes and also only grow earlies to avoid blight.
I have found Cara can be grown on to produce a good size second early.
I have tried Duke of York and they also can be grown on to produce good second earlies.
I like that this gives me options if it turns into a particularly bad summer for blight.

Don.

[peatParticipant]

A good idea is to plant maincrop first or at the same time as earlies. This will give them a few weeks more growing if blight strikes. Try Orla, a few years ago they were sold to me as earlies, then they went to main crop.

[sblairParticipant]

HI I bought Pink Fir potatoes and have chatted them – I discovered that these should be planted around end April. If I plant them, say, beginning of April will this be OK? I think if I leave them chatting much longer they will run out of energy! Also I don’t want to go to the bother of digging a deep trench and building up the soil on top of the potato as it grows, would it be OK to make a deep hole and drop the potato down the hole and let it grow up naturally?

[sblairParticipant]

Obviously the potatoes are chitting not chatting as my spell checker thought but it is quite amusing to think of them chatting away on the window sill!!

[charlesModerator]

Sowing dates for potatoes are flexible, in your case I expect that early April is fine for Pink Fir.
Even if damaged by late first, they recover and grow strongly after that.
You don’t need a deep hole if you can mulch with organic matter.

[sblairParticipant]

Many thanks, Charles, good news for me and I’ve put the date in my diary to plant them out.

[Anonymous]

I am planning on planting a lot of potatoes this year, but there is so much waste after digging it. Does anyone have any suggestions on how to get rid of it?

[Don FoleyParticipant]

Hi Arabella,

Put it in your compost Bin. If you don’t have a Compost Bin dig a trench in one of your other beds a bury it there.

Don.

[charlesModerator]

Arabella, you can compost all the stems and leaves, even if they have blight, which does not survive in soil or compost, because its spores need living tissue to survive.

[Anonymous]

Thank you everyone for advice. After some thinking I decided, that I dont want to compost anything, its too much work for me. I pre-ordered rubbish removal here . I ve read some good reviews about this company. Has anyone worked with them?

[Author]

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