Confused about potatoes in grow bags :s

i have recently planted some well chitted potatoes into potato sack thingys i got from unwins. The tinyshoots started to appear above the surface iof the compost. I watched gardeners world and monty don said to cover these up with more compost which i have. How long do i do this before i let the foliage develop so the plant can photosynthesise??

thank you.

 

hi again
no personal experience with spuds yet but i thought you just kept topping up with soil till the bags full

 

Pam's right, keep covering them up until the bag is full and then once they flower and the tops dry off your tatties should be ready!

 

and another question. Sorry.

when do i know for certain the potatoes are ready to harvest???

 

I think variety plays a part in as to when they are ready and on that I am not qualified, even in an amateur way, to speak. But certainly they should be ready once the tops have died off.

 

I'm trying spuds in bags for the first time this year. I have steadily unrolled the plastic as the shoots grew and added more peat/soil/compost. They seem very happy and are just coming into flower. I'm eager to see the results!

 

Do you leave the potato plants to die down before excavating the postatoes????

thanks

 

has anyone potatos fell over yet ???

the follage on 3 of my bag has given way !!

no idea why they have been watered wondering if they are just top heavy

and also wondering if this will affect the crop ?

any ideas

by the way they are starting to flower as they are earlies

 

I've only limited spud growing experience but I have the same symptoms as cattwoman25. Very vigorous growth with the foliage becoming too heavy to support itself. I'm putting it down to a dry but warm May followed by an awful lot of rain recently which has forced on the leaf development.

 

Don't worry about the stems falling over and then turning up again as long as they are healthy.

As mentioned, first early varieties can be harvested before the tops mature and start to die back - usually begin early summer.
Second earlies also before the tops mature and die back - late summer into early autumn
Maincrop when the tops have flowered, matured and start to die back - well into autumn.

http://www.raffia.plus.com

 

"As plantsman said the potato tops falling over is not a problem and will happen from time to time. They just grow so fast at this time of year that the stems don't seem strong enough to hold up all the leaf growth. It just needs a bit of rain to make them even more top heavy and maybe some wind to topple them over"

Ditto. My tatoes went all ahoo these days with heavy rain and wind, but they are getting themselves up again. My tatoes get a few hours of shade in the morning, so I thought they would get lanky and put sticks to help them stand. Those that are planted to windward of the sticks are still standing, those on the lee flopped over (but they recovered in a couple of days). Watch your surroundings, and take measures accordingly!

 

Thanks for the reassurances about potato tops falling over! I'm fairly new to growing spuds and have been amazed at the leaf growth in the past few days of heavy rain and warm intervals.

When can I have an exploratory peek at my first earlies?

 

thanks for your input folks

i water mine every other night if we hav'nt had rain fall so im guessing mine have just gone top heavy as they are sheltered too !

prastio you can have a rumage round see if you can feel anything i would'nt pull them out incase there not done

i did the other day and pulled one out the size of a sprout lol

so i shall be leaving them abit longer me thinks