Potato Growing 2025

I'm not sure where you find seed potatoes for £1 each and need to cut them in half.

Seed potatoes | Notcutts Garden Centres

 

@pete We had not heard of Notcutts Garden Centres

There is one about 20 miles from here, so we went there yesterday.
Known as Rivendell, located at Mill Lane, Widnes, Cheshire, WA8 3UL
Indeed the seed potatoes are reasonably priced.
We got
Sarpo Mira 2 bags, 8 tubers per bag
King Edward, 1 bag @ 2 kilos
Foremost, first earlies 2 kilos
All for a total of £16

We had lunch there, good food and reasonable.
A really good Garden Centre.

Mrs C informs me that we are going again next Friday
Thanks for the heads up.
John.

 

Its not a cheap place regarding buying plants but they are ok for things like seeds and usually have a good range.

 

Galante first earlies and Acoustic seconds for me this year. As part of my efforts to simplify my veg growing this year I'll be growing more potatoes, the acoustics are supposed to get quite big and floury and keep well, plus being second earlies I should still be able to get some salads in after then for autumn time if I want to

 

@hailbopp thanks for the Anya recommendation! Bought some from Sainsbury's yesterday. They did look very like Pink Fir Apple but more consistent, and easy to scrub. They were delicious steamed and buttered. I have some left over, so they'll go in a salad tonight.
I'm going to try using some as seed potatoes (not the boiled ones ).

 

I'm looking at growing Winston this year, not grown them before. I grew Sharpes Express and Pink Fir Apple last year.

 

Glad you liked them, if you do decide to grow them, come about July have ready a pan of water boiling, furtle around and pop some new Anya into the water asap. Only take about 5 mins to cook, totally yummy with lashings of butter or cold with mayo. As I grow loads I store some and still have a few to eat. They store just as well as main crop. Roll on Spring so I can start growing this season’s batch.

 

I am trying Jazzy this year. I bought some to cook, had never heard of them. I like waxy potatoes, these have a buttery flavour. 2nd early. I grow my potatoes in containers.

 

My Dad used to say grow something new each year, so this year it's Winston and Buster(no I've never heard of them either), all now settled in the conservatory chitting.

 

I've bought a variety called Jelly and I think I've had Jazzy, both were small, and "new potato" types, but out of season, if you get my meaning.

 

Well the choice was, sort of, made for me. I listed my old favourites plus some alternatives but the GC where I usually buy them didn't have as big a range as they used to. In fairness they still have a good selection.
I buy there because they sell them loose, you pay a fixed price and "fill a bag" even though the large bag has gone up to nearly £13 it's still good value.
So I got, Foremost X 15 tubers, Swift X5, Charlotte x20, Sarpo mira X 21. Plus just 5 Orla for a grandchild to grow as its her best friends name so a bit of fun.
They didn't have ang Pink fir, Anya or Ratte. I would have had a few and cut down on one of the others.

 

Where I buy my seed potatoes where there is a really excellent choice of maybe 50 different varieties you can do the same and fill a bag/s of different ones and pay by weight. The only variety you cannot get in the “pick and mix” is Anya which are sold separately in bags which the garden centre obviously buys in . Slight snag is the bags are about 1kg so not ideal if someone only wants a few.

 

Given up growing potatoes. Tried different varieties over the last few years in Scotland and now the South Coast they all seem to delaminate and go into mush before 20 minutes of boiling is up.