Potato Growing 2023

Tattie time. 2kg bag £3.99 at local garden centre. Going to try Swift.
A few home grown Charlotte kept for seed and a few maincrop Marvel that Id bought from Aldi a few weeks back.
Shouldnt grow store bought I know but these are really tasty and Im hoping as they were grown in Angus they should be disease free . Fingrrs crossed.

 

My local Wilko have a good supply of seed Potatoes.

 

I don't grow a lot of stuff to eat, can someone tell me why you shouldn't save and grow from store bought?

 

I've done it in the past and my dad used to do it if he needed a few more to fill a row.
Main reason I can think of is disease. They used to treat potatoe tubers to stop them sprouting in the cupboard I think that was banned some while ago.
Have a look round and you may find a local garden centre that sells loose seed potatoes and then you can buy the few you want; admittedly choice of variety will be restricted.
You can also cut the tubers up allow to cut surface to dry and so long as you have an "eye" each bit will grow. Some people used to grow them simply from the peelings.

 

I used to grow potatoes on the allotment I had but 1 year I tried growing some on the balcony. I used old compost bags. The plants grew alright but I found they take up far too much space for the few potatoes I got in return so I haven't grown them any more.

 

I have grown them from my own saved tubers from the year before, probably considered worse than growing from supermarket ones, but its not something that I would do long term.

Most of the ones I buy from supermarkets start to shoot in a week or two kept in the garage and the urge to plant them is great.

Also, lots of supermarkets do give the variety name these days, so you know what you are getting.

 

I don't know whether to grow potatoes this year or not, my garden is in a mess.
I grow them in tubs, and I get loose seed tubers from a near-by garden centre. You can pick as many or as few as you want. Bags contain too many for me.
I usually choose a few tubers of different varieties, and usually forget which ones they are ! but I read the description on the box of tubers, and if it appeals to me I'll buy a few so I don't mind if I can't remember which ones I bought the previous year.

 

The only problem with not remembering which is which is if they turn out to really good you dont know what to buy next year.

If I'm completely honest I'm yet to grow a potato that I think is worth the effort.
I dont have much success with Pink Fir Apple anymore, the summers have been far too dry, and you can dump water all day on potatoes without achieving much other than giving you a massive water bill.

Dont think I'll grow any this year, but I'm always struggling to cut down and when push comes to shove I end up giving in.

 

It's difficult to remember the names unless you write them down. In the garden centre where I buy them you get brown paper bags to put them in, but I've never got a pen. I suppose I could ask the person at the till for one but it's too much of a faff.
Anyway it doesn't bother me

 

Last year was our first attempt at growing potatoes -all in 30 litre plastic tubs
The tubs were numbered, then we recorded names dates etc in an old diary
For this year we decided on these four varieties;

Sarpo Mira
Casablanca
Charlotte
Marfona

The only supplier we could find who sell all four varieties is Jamieson Brothers.
So we bunged the order in. £22.46 including post
We asked for mid February delivery

Watch this space

 

I didn't do badly on the allotment with 'Maris Piper' (the only one I can remember at this moment!) But I probably have pictures I took of them when I planted them out & when I harvested them. I took 100s of photos of everything on the allotment the few years I had mine!

 

Picked up 2kg of epicure, a first early from local garden centre. Has big eyes, will probably need a toothbrush to clean them properly come harvest time.

Anyone grown that variety before?

 

Started to chit.....
Am I too early ?