THE TATTIES THREAD 2018

Other than the Sarpos, no other maincrop varieties, but nearly all my earlies succumbed to early blight.

 

Not a sign of blight here yet and forecast is for warm and very dry so the alerts I have had are about as accurate as the weather forecasts! Hell I don't like the info from Scrungee that his Sarpos have blight ALREADY. I planted my Sarpos next door to my Pink Firs as I was under the impression that they were virtually blight free...well that is obviously wrong. Pink Firs are my favourite main season spud but are pretty likely to get late blight. Here was miss me thinking how clever I was to plant another unlikely candidate next to them. Hmm yet "another of my cunning plans Baldrick" which are likely to be as useful as a chocolate teapot

 

Ok so I only usually grow Pink Fir Apple, thought I'd try some King Edwards as well this year. My PFA s are doing ok as usual, but the KE are doing rubbish.

They go limp at the first sign of any heat and are looking pretty poor regarding standing up to dry conditions.
Has anyone else noticed varieties that dont do well if the ground is a bit less than muddy.

 

Just got back from holiday and harvested my Foremost early potatoes , from a trug plastic container. Got just under 2 kg which ain't to bad . Boiled new spuds with the BBQ this evening

 

38 Continous hours of rain showers now forecast between 05:00 Friday morning and 19:00 Saturday evening.

I feel a blight alert coming.

 

Saving up for a proper indoor cooker then @HarryS , you will find it much easier, when you get one.

 

I just finished cooking some spuds outside. I have one of those single burner induction cooktops and I take ourside in hot weather, plug it in and cook there. House stays cool, spuds get cooked.

Forgot to say, these were not ones I grew. Mine aren't ready yet.

 

What and miss the smell of me burning meat on the BBQ , never

 

Have you eaten any Kennebecs yet?

 

A few days ago I noticed the foliage dieing off on my container grown kenenbecs outside, pulling them confirmed they where rotting but no sign of blight...no idea what happened. So, the day after I dug up the four plants I had growing in the tunnel...here is the harvest.

Just a few ounces shy of 20lb, so 5lb per plant. Just weighed the largest (from a large "baker" point of view and it was 15oz, with many just short of that. Nice and clean. A few have the extra lobes that I know are desirable for "heavy" potatoes. A few photo's.







W e tried the first last night and they where excellent, and I mean that. I will grow again, that is for sure.

Steve...

 

I've only had some of the smaller ones removed to allow the one remaining spud to grow huge, and had them as microwaved jacket spuds and loved the texture after cooking. I hope Dundry sell them again in 2019, but in case they don't, I've been growing some in 10L pots in polytunnels to potentially produce seed spuds for next year.

P.S. By "smaller ones" I mean around 6 to 8 ozs.

 

Just lifted one of the smaller plants (basically a runt) with a badly slug damaged stem that failed prematurely, and the spuds on it weighed 732g. If all 24 plants produced as much, that would be 17.6 Kg from a single seed potato.

Next year, for a bit of fun, I might see just what sort of weight I can acheive from dividing up a single seed spud. This year's plants are no good for that as about half of them have been reduced to just one single big tuber below ground and the others grown for next year's seed spuds rather than yield.

 

I had a small bet with myself last night that I'd get a blight alert today as for the 1st time since about the beginning of May we have had a decent and oh so needed doze of rain late yesterday. Sure enough I got an alert an hour and 1/2 ago. It's almost as if you don't live in desert conditions it's blight alert time!
I'm not at all convinced about this blight alert thingy. Surely just because it rains and it's not freezing cold does that automatically mean you likely to get bight? I don't need to be told it is warm and wet, even I can figure that 1 out for myself. I think I will cancel the alert as there isn't a huge amount I can do to stop it other than take off the top growth if I see signs of it.
Happily due to A LOT of watering, my crop of Anya are absolutely gorgeous, the Pink Fir and Sarpo are looking as tho they will produce a good crop too if the healthy top growth is anything to go by. The only ones which didn't do really really well, were my Pentland Javalin. Maybe I was a bit quick to harvest them and they did tend to break up a bit when boiled. The Belle De Fontenay were much better in comparison so will just grow those as my outside 1st earlies next season and not bother with the Pentland.

 

So do you save your own seed potatoes @Scrungee? I was wondering whether I should try this too but not sure how best to store them and you are warned to buy new seed spuds every year.
I missed a Red Duke of York from last season and it sprouted (surprised it survived the winter in the ground here) a bit later than the chitted seed potatoes I planted out in another area of the veg plot.. I decided to just let it grow and see what happened. Flaming typical, the results were that this spud left in the soil over winter, not chitted and left to get on with it, produced wonderful spuds, much better than what I got off the RD of Y seed potatoes I bought last season. I suppose it's not a fair comparison as the weather this season has been vastly different to last.