Potatoes

I managed quite a good crop of potatoes last year through using those beginner kits from HomeBase. I would like to just buy the chittings? this year and not the whole kit but know nothing about which are first, second and maincrops and when each ought to be sown/harvested? Any advice?

 

Most seed potato packs are marked as "early", "second early", "maincrop" and "late maincrop".

Try "googling" seed potatoes and you'll find a wealth of information and suppliers.

Hope this helps,

Vince

 

Yes, do Google seed potatoes , Sterile.

This may take some of the mystery out of the business for you.
Potato tops are not frost hardy so you have to grow them in a frost free period.
As a rough guide, from planting to harvesting
Earlies need 8-10weeks
2nd earlies about 13 weeks
Maincrop 18 - 22 weeks.
You can plant them all any date you like once frost is over as long as you make sure you have the required number of frost free weeks left.

Hope this is of some help.

 

Thanks guys, I am getting pretty excited abut the idea of planting stuff again! :inautumnleaves:

 

Me too, got 2 trays of onions, 3 pots of leeks, a tray of mangetout, chives, sage, lettuce,broccoli, peppers, chillis & mustard on the go & thats just on the window sills.

Have a look at this thread from the Allotment section.

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/Thread-Potatoes.html

 

If you are growing in Bags then I assume this is either because you don't have a Veg Patch, or you are trying to get "extra early New Potatoes".

You need to buy some Seed Potatoes (the actual tubers, but these will be certified disease free). You probably only want 3 per bag (unless your bags are very big, in which case you might want 4)

A Garden Centre will probably sell them loose - which would mean you could buy 3-each of several varieties to make a comparison.

First and Second Early, and Main Crop, just refer to how long they take to mature - you can plant them all on the same day.

I don't see any point you growing Main Crop - you won't get many from a bag, and by the time Main Crop are ready for harvesting Spuds are cheap in the supermarket.

If you have a conservatory (unheated is fine) then you can start them off from 1st February onwards (perhaps put them in a utility room or similar to start with so they have a bit of heat)

I grow a couple of bags of First Early (to get really early spuds) - planting them on 1st Feb I normally harvest them around 2nd week of May. (Potatoes grown outside at the very end of March, or 1st week of April, will be ready 2nd week of June). I grown Arran Pilot which is very early (fast growing) and has a nice flavour.

And then I grow a few more bags of Charlotte which is a Second Early, so takes a bit longer, but has a superb flavour as a New Potato.

You can also grow New Potatoes for Christmas - plant the seed potatoes in the bags in August - but they need to be protected from frost, so you need a greenhouse or conservatory.

[hr]

OK

" 3 pots of leeks, a tray of mangetout, chives, sage, lettuce,broccoli, peppers, chillis & mustard on the go & thats just on the window sills."

These are scary-early Ziggy (well, the chillies are OK if you are going to grow them in a heated greenhouse, or similar?)

The problem is the lack of light this time of year. They will get leggy on a windowsill (make sure you rig up a half-cardboard-box as a screen behind the seeds on the windowsill, lined with tinfoil - that will help prevent the seedlings leaning towards the window, and should help.

I worry that your leeks, started this early, will be inclined to bolt. They will be very early (which is fine if you like Leeks in Autumn, we see them as a Winter vegetable and don't want to be eating them that early).

Broccoli sounds like Summer Sprouting? I've grown that before and the reaction I got from the family was "This is a Winter veg" plus the heat at that time of year (compared to growing Winter Sprouting) means that they get from Sprouting to Flowering in a depressingly short time :(

Sweet Peppers are OK, a bit early perhaps, but you may find it a struggle to maintain the plants before they can go out (if you have a conservatory they'll be fine - but otherwise they will be getting quite large as houseplants before they can go out!)

Sorry to be so upbeat, I'll try to be more negative in my next post

 

Hey Kristen,

All advice welcomed

The Chillis & Peppers are last years window sill ones, pruned & repotted. One chilli is starting to flower, but the flowers are dropping off. Need a bucket of huming bird hawk moths to pollinate them.

The leeks will be hardened off into cold frames as soon as they all come up, as will the mangetout. I was amazed how some late (august) planted Mangetout was cropping upto december & was only killed off with the snow, so i'm risking an early planting with protection. Even if it fails, the roots will have fixed some nitrogen into the soil.

Only 2 plants of summer purple sprouting, just to try it out. Thompson & Morgan are giving them away if you buy any 2 packets of their seed. I'll happily eat brocolli at any time of year, but usually fail to net against batterpillars.

I'm not just growing to plant out for myself, I have a little roadside stall so a lot of stuff will go out there to pay for the cost of seeds.

Talking of seed costs, bought a packet of Tomato, Losetto F1 hybrid today. It says exceptional tolerance to late blight fungus. A bit more than I normally pay for tom seed at £3.49. When I read the small print it says "Average 6 seeds."

Now I normally expect around 150 seeds for £2.99, so these had better be good. Otherwise "Mr Snuggles" the baseball bat is coming out.

 

Ah, OK. I assumed "from seed", sorry.

Sorry mate, but you are never going to find huming bird hawk moths this time of year ...

"Thompson & Morgan are giving them away if you buy any 2 packets of their seed. "

They've never given me anything that turned out to actually be useful (and they usually give me stuff every time I checkout ...)

"but usually fail to net against batterpillars"

Hoops from blue water pipe, and chuck some scaffolders debris netting over it (which you can probably blag from a site where it is being used, as I expect it is usually thrown away after a job, rather than reused?)

Some pictures of a 9-year-old building it on my blog if you are a bit shakey on DIY? <vbg>

"Otherwise "Mr Snuggles" the baseball bat is coming out."

You are Bad. "BAD" I tell you!!!

 

Now the onions are what you should have been concerned about, got distracted by Doctor Who & accidentally sowed 120 kelsae onions. Gonna need a lot of space there.

 

They can be pricked out into small modules and stuck outside, so they are fine. I reckon that a household kitchen needs at least 120 onions ... so as long as you ahve space to grow them (and not only them!) you are good-to-go. :thumb:

 

Yep, they will be spread between the 2 plots & we've got plenty of space for pots.