experiment ! Find the potato which suits your soil, what is good in one garden does not always do good next door. If you have the space try different varieties until you find a breed which performs well.
Hi - I planted maincrop Sante in Apring this year and a couple months later had some really beautiful, tasty potatoes. I put them in planters, got loads, had enough to give bags of them to my neighbours, too. No blight, no problems, no pests. I sort of cheated and planted them in compost, with nothing else, so maybe that helped. Best advice I got was to keep picking the flowers off the leaves, and also to cut the leaves down to soil level once they started to yellow. Then left the potatoes alone for another three weeks or so, tipped them out and they were great. Best advice I got is rather than use expensive containers, just buy a big trug, cut some holes in the bottom, away you go
We are still trying to find the potato that we enjoyed when we were young. Every year we plant some old varieties, no luck so far. Must be how things are remembered. We do not grow maincrop as we can obtain them from our local farms.
On the subject of new potatoes, however, we find that International Kidney is the nearest to Jersey Royals and this year we tried Anya, which we found to be very good. The added bonus is that that they turn out much cheaper that supermarket bought and with Anya there is no waste as you just scrub them and eat every one however small.
Lady Balfour and Pink Fir Apple in bags - reasonable crop considering the bags were left in the open without regular feeding.
I have just planted some of my sprouting Charlottes in the greenhouse border and some sprouting Desiree in potato bags. Ready for Xmas perhaps?
I also had much success with Maris Piper that I bought marked down in price from Morrisons - I planted these alongside my front Leylandii hedge and was amazed at the yield.
I grow a lot of potatoes as everyone in the house eats them.
Grew Sharpes Express as earlies. Sowed 2 March started to harvest 1/July. These cropped very poorly this year as we had very cold weather in April and May.
Sowed British Queens as second earlies. Sowed on 3 April, harvested from 12 July. Poor crop at first but they picked up as the year moved on. probably affected by poor conditions early on.
Sowed Roosters and Golden Wonders as main crop on 20 April. Dug 102.5 kg of Roosters on 18 September and 125 kg Golden Wonder on 28 September. Both are very sound and good to eat. Roosters yielded 1.1 kg per foot of row and the GWs yielded .85 kg per foot of row.
I see by the previous comments that quite a few people plant Charlotte and I tried Charlotte for the first time this year and although I was very late putting them in I still had a very good crop so will grow them again. The other ones I like and grow are Maris Peer and Desiree. Even though I have heavy soil and unable to water them I still have reliable crops from these varieties. Lots of ideas Michael so it's trial and error.
Posts
1st Earlies - Charlotte
2nds - Maris Piper
Main - King Edward
In bags - were reasonable cropping would do better in the ground.
experiment ! Find the potato which suits your soil, what is good in one garden does not always do good next door. If you have the space try different varieties until you find a breed which performs well.
Hi - I planted maincrop Sante in Apring this year and a couple months later had some really beautiful, tasty potatoes. I put them in planters, got loads, had enough to give bags of them to my neighbours, too. No blight, no problems, no pests. I sort of cheated and planted them in compost, with nothing else, so maybe that helped. Best advice I got was to keep picking the flowers off the leaves, and also to cut the leaves down to soil level once they started to yellow. Then left the potatoes alone for another three weeks or so, tipped them out and they were great. Best advice I got is rather than use expensive containers, just buy a big trug, cut some holes in the bottom, away you go
I've grown Pentland Javelin 1st earlies for a few years, like the taste and they store well.
We are still trying to find the potato that we enjoyed when we were young. Every year we plant some old varieties, no luck so far. Must be how things are remembered. We do not grow maincrop as we can obtain them from our local farms.
On the subject of new potatoes, however, we find that International Kidney is the nearest to Jersey Royals and this year we tried Anya, which we found to be very good. The added bonus is that that they turn out much cheaper that supermarket bought and with Anya there is no waste as you just scrub them and eat every one however small.
Lady Balfour and Pink Fir Apple in bags - reasonable crop considering the bags were left in the open without regular feeding.
I have just planted some of my sprouting Charlottes in the greenhouse border and some sprouting Desiree in potato bags. Ready for Xmas perhaps?
I also had much success with Maris Piper that I bought marked down in price from Morrisons - I planted these alongside my front Leylandii hedge and was amazed at the yield.
Is it harmful for me to eat fried tomatoes that have succumbed to late blight?
I grow a lot of potatoes as everyone in the house eats them.
Grew Sharpes Express as earlies. Sowed 2 March started to harvest 1/July. These cropped very poorly this year as we had very cold weather in April and May.
Sowed British Queens as second earlies. Sowed on 3 April, harvested from 12 July. Poor crop at first but they picked up as the year moved on. probably affected by poor conditions early on.
Sowed Roosters and Golden Wonders as main crop on 20 April. Dug 102.5 kg of Roosters on 18 September and 125 kg Golden Wonder on 28 September. Both are very sound and good to eat. Roosters yielded 1.1 kg per foot of row and the GWs yielded .85 kg per foot of row.
Do tomatoes with blight taste OK? I would have thought frying them would kill the fungus.
I see by the previous comments that quite a few people plant Charlotte and I tried Charlotte for the first time this year and although I was very late putting them in I still had a very good crop so will grow them again. The other ones I like and grow are Maris Peer and Desiree. Even though I have heavy soil and unable to water them I still have reliable crops from these varieties. Lots of ideas Michael so it's trial and error.