Potato Growing 2025

So getting set up.
Bought some Jazzy from b&q, half price all spuds and bulbs local deal i think.
Kept some Charlotte and Marvel from last year.
Kingsman from Aldi at Christmas,tasty.
All going in 10 and 30 ltr pots.

 

Thinking of trying potatoes for the first time this year. They will be in big pots or sacks.

Any recommendations for small salad type potatoes please?…

 

My absolute favourite is Anya, which is small waxy and totally delicious both cold and hot but like it best in potato salad. It is quite knobbly but there is no need to peel them and they cook really quickly. They are a cross with PinkFir which are also delicious but they are later to mature and thus more susceptible to blight. Anya was created by Albert Bartlett of Rooster fame. The potato variety is called Anya after the Chairman? of Sainsbury’s wife. The supermarket presumably financed the R&D of the potato and I think they are the only place you can buy the potatoes other than seed potatoes supplied for us amateur growers. To me Anya are nicer than Charlotte despite them looking a bit odd. I have grown them quite successfully in pots/sacks in the greenhouse for a very early crop and also in beds outside. Despite being a 2nd early they store remarkably well but do loose some of that new potato taste.

 

Thanks @hailbopp - I’ll look out for those then.

 

Hi

I am shocked , as i was looking at prices of some varieties are £1.00 for each potato

 

These are not seed potatoes they are for eating.
But I'd probably give them a go if I was looking for seed, just eat what you want and use a few for seed.

£1 a potato sounds a bit extortionate for seed potatoes, I know they rip you off if you only want a small amount of seed.

I was ripped off by T&M the other day, I bought onion seed and the packet said something along the lines of "savers" just £1.50 a packet.

Didn't spot it only contained 10 seeds, never buy from T&M again.

 

Same Pete

courgette seeds reduced in price , then it said 4 seeds lol

 

You have to keep an eye on watering them @AuntyRach, I always grow them in big tubs and they can dry out quickly, but I get good crops from them.
I only put about 3 in a tub depending on their size, never more than 4, don't overcrowd them, they need plenty of room.
And grow them somewhere airy.

 

@Michael Hewett how big are your tubs please? I'm getting tempted by all this talk about Anya - I love a good potato salad!

 

I'll check the sizes later on @CarolineL

 

I grow most of my Anya outside but also grow some in tubs in the greenhouse for an early crop. These are what I use, think they’re about 50ls.

Handy as have handles so I can drag the tubs out of the greenhouse when the weather is very much warmer and I am fighting to get past the halms. If you don’t have any really big tubs I think you can buy purpose built potato sacks which will do the job just as well. You certainly do not need anything fancy.
I would agree with @Michael Hewett and only put 4 seed potatoes per tub of this sort of size. The way I do it is put about 6 inches of whatever growing medium you have in the bottom of the tub, (I use my weedy compost, horse manure as have it available, with a bit of soil and maybe some old shop bought compost on top, left over from say hanging baskets the previous season, cost zero!). You certainly do not need to use about a whole huge bag of shop bought compost which makes the potatoes expensive to grow!Cover the seed potatoes with about 4 inches of growing medium and wait. Once the sprouts are through about 4 or 5 inches I add more growing medium to almost cover the sprouts. Repeat until you have reached the top of the tub. All you are really doing is mimicking earthing up. Hope this makes sense! I plant mine in tubs in about Middle February but if you live in a warmer part of the country than I do which is quite a few places you could maybe plant earlier especially if you have a greenhouse. Being deep planted even if it is cold the tubers are very unlikely to freeze. Depending on what kind of spring we get I usually have a reasonable crop by the middle of June a good month before the outside Anya are producing.
Pink Fir are delicious too but quite a bit later and as a consequence much more likely to succumb to blight. I lost the whole crop of Pink Fir 2 years running so gave up on them.

 

@CarolineL my pots are 15 inches in diameter and about 14 high, they are ordinary plastic pots, and they're old. I wouldn't use them for ornamental plants because they don't look nice any more, but all right for potatoes.

@AuntyRach I agree with @hailbopp about earthing up and compost, that's something else to remember about growing potatoes in tubs.

 

Thanks @hailbopp and @Michael Hewett - the idea of the greenhouse earlies is tempting but for the very limited space in my greenhouse! I have a continuous supply of horse manure, and lovely rotted soil/manure mix, so filling will be cheap. So now it's a matter of getting hold of anya...

 

I’ve done this too @JWK when I couldn’t get any Belle de Fontenay and used some of my previous years ones I had intended on eating! Friend who was a potato merchant just told me to do as you have done making sure each section had at least one eye and leave the cut sections somewhere warm and dry to heal over. The cuts sealed over pretty quickly and I didn’t see much difference in yield surprisingly. Certainly a way of not having to spend much on seed potatoes!