seed potatoes

Many thanks Walnut for your advice,and thanks Crowley great link have printed it off to help me. Thanks again.

 

Just a point that always seems a bit vague to me is, how do you judge when an early variety is ready?
I sometimes think people dig them too early, a poor watery potato can be a really good firm and tasty one if left another couple of weeks or so.
But thats just my thoughts.

Any ideas anyone?

 

Thanks Dendy for the potato help, I keep buying Maris Piper so that explains why I only get floury ones :D :D

 

Hi Pete,

I understood that a potato is ready when the leaves start falling over and going yellow, not sure if this is right?

Just bought Aaron Pilot and Maris piper this year. Grew Duke of York last year and were pretty good but want to try something different. Just need the veggie patch to dry out enough to dig it!

 

Hi wiseowl, Arran Pilot is a first early. your salad varieties are- Charlotte, Anya, Juliette, Pink fir apple and Ratte.(Marshalls fruit and veg cat.) Hope this will help you.

 

No the potato is not ready when the foliage falls over - that might apply to maincrop but not earlies. It depends a bit on trial and error. after flowering I start rooting around to see what i can find. If i find any decent sized spuds, basically if they are worth peeling then they are ready. The first diggings are usually small but later on the yield from each plant will get bigger because those dug later wi8ll have had more time. With earlies you are aiming to dig over a period of weeks and each is dug just before they are eaten. You are aiming for flavour, not maximum crop.
If a potato is watery with poor taste then its not a very good early. I used to grow Pentland Javelin and the first ones had that lovely new potato taste. Later on, particularly on the dryish plot I worked they lost some of that flavour but really bulked up.
No first earlies are not same as salad potatoes. The classic salad potato with its waxy texture is Pink Fir apple. Ratte is a newer one. Have a look at the Marshall's web site. Its worth a read on the spuds.
http://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/?PAGEID=20671&ctl_cat_Code=M12111

 

Just found the Tuckers Seeds website and their prices are very good. They also offer a lot of organic seed.
http://www.tuckers-seeds.co.uk/

 

Woodland Farm, St Helliers, Jersey, Sell mail order Jersey Royal seed potatoes.

 

If anyone fancies trying organic veg you could try:
http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/
Also I became a memeber and get 10% discount and you get to take part in seed raising/swopping etc as a guardian which im going to do this year.
The idea being to keep some of the old almost lost varieties alive and build up stock.

 

Hi Josephine,

It would seem that I was wrong about saying it's too early for seed potatoes, this week radio 4's garden question time and bbc humberside'the great outdoors gardening programme suggested starting seed potatoes now?
I'm waiting for my order to come through!

 

Years ago we had 2 Alotments, and wait 4 it 7 children, I was a bit skint lolllll, so I got 2 Wwhite bags of Spuds and 1 red from local Market and chit them in my shed.
Then planted then leaveing a few weeks between planting .
HAD A GREAT CROP, NEARLY ENOUGH FOR AN YEAR 4 THE KIDS AND US LOLLLLLLL.

 

It's weird isn't it they say that you have to buy speacialist spuds for chitting not just a spud from shop and i know it's to do with quality and i know also when it comes to other seeds they say buy new every year, but in the past people surely just kept the tubers or the seed etc.
I think i want to try to keep enough seed or spud to do my own rather than buying new, but i guess its difficult to do with spuds? I know the quality goes, but surely nature is designed to reproduce without human interference?

 

I have just bought some Red Duke of York, some International Kidney and Maris Bard.
I am going to put some of the I.K. into a compost bag in the greenhouse in hopes of some very early earlies. The rest I will start chitting for planting out in early March. Hurray!

 

Hi Josephine,
I have purchased an early variety called "Orla" they are organic so I am hoping that they are as good as the label says