Potatoes - Main crop flowering before Earlies

Strange ? My main crop is beginning to flower but there's no sign of any buds on the earlies.

Earlies are Pentland Javelin, lates are Cara and King Edward. Only difference in care and attention is that the earlies have been earthed up on more than one occasion whereas the lates have only been earthed up once - I wanted fewer, but bigger, spuds.

Just wondering whether this is 'nomal', but whether it is or isn't I don't suppose I can do anything about it :cnfs:

 

I don't think "flowering" says much ... some flower, some don't, some earlier, some later ... depends on variety and so on.

If you earlies have been in 13 weeks then its worth making an investigation to see how many tubers there are. I have plenty of plants, and I am growing them to enjoy, rather than for maximum yield, so I started lifted my First Early Arran pilot at 9 weeks. Enough for a meal for two from one plant, and now at 11 weeks there are even more

 

Ah, ....... I've been waiting for an excuse to take a look .... thanks for that :thumb:

 

I'm now worrying that they will be the size of marbles ... I've got my running shoes handy, just in case :D

 

My Pentland Javelin are flowering beautifully at 9 weeks, but once bitten twice shy (see thread entitled "A salutary lesson"). I imagine you have a few good sized tubers anyway, but in another 3 or 4 weeks you should have a much better crop. Don't be tempted to lift those first earlies too early unless, as Kristen often mentions, you can afford to sacrifice a plant or two. I only had one set of Charlotte plants in a bin, and I couldn't afford to lift so early. But I did.
As for the flowers on the main crops, as I understand it, it doesn't matter much... they have a whole lot of growing to do yet so flowers or no flowers, you just need to wait for foliage to start dying off, and that's a couple of months off.

 

Don't know what they are, but one guy's spuds on our site are smothered in flowers like a field of white begonias! My Red Duke of York sent up flower buds that all dropped off before opening. Good yield of large tasty spuds though.

 

Thanks, everyone.

Mrs Doogle has put her foot down, 13 weeks will not be up until the midde of June, so I'm not allowed to touch anything yet. (Kristen: that lets you off the hook :D )

When I dug up those with Blackleg there were a few sizeable Tubers, but not very many (perhaps 5 or 6 per plant, varying from 'elongated-golf-ball' size to 'marbles').