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Charlotte potatoes
Have a go Nick
Posts: 352
in Fruit & veg
Anyone growing there Charlotte potatoes in the grow bags provided in the gardeners world offer.
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I grew them in old 50l compost sacks last year. Had a perfectly good crop.
I have just received mine today. Iv never done potatoes before and was wondering if anyone had any tips On how to grow them?
I will be planting them in the sacks provided
Hi have a go nick, i haven't looked at the GW mag yet, i fancied doing some in bags this year. I do have room to put in garden,just a couple of rows. i always grow charlottes now, i have tried others, another favourite are vivaldi, but they are not usually stocked locally. I have always had excellent results with charlottes. Last year i did not even mound up, just dug a trench, then dug each seed potato into place, then topped with my garden compostvand then filled in the trench, worked absolutely fine, i have never mounded up as they grow, as not enough hours in my day, but my other method was to mound up first then trowel in the seed potatoe into the ground under the mound, both ways worked good for me, you can't believe the taste of freshly dug potatoes?
I got the Charlotte kit but haven't put them out yet though they are chitting nicely on the windowsill (north facing, good light but no direct sun as per Mr Titchmarsh)
The last two years we grew potatoes in bags and had mixed results, probably mainly from putting too many tubers in each bag. The instructions with the Charlottes are one tuber per bag, and I thought the bags looked quite small, but if that's the recommended thing then we'll give it a go.
We are also building some potato boxes as we bought some rocket and maris pipers and I aim to experiment by planting some under black polythene and some as usual, earthing them up as they grow
Should be interesting, and hopefully not disastrous!
I had 3 per bag, If I'd had more bags and compost,I'd have gone for one per bag.
Planted all of the potatoes yesterday. I put the charlottes in the bags as directed and have two in Jack's Magic, two in a westmorland MPC with John Innes and one in a mix of home made compost and the westmorland. I added some incredcrop to one of each of the bags with the bought compost and also to the mixed bag and will see what comes up.
I also didn't water them, having watched Monty say they don't need water until I can see green shoots
Just call me Mrs Experimental (or just mental!)
Did your Charlotte's chit or not
Well I chitted them but they produced fewer chits(?) than the rocket potatoes I put in the same egg box on the same windowsill about three weeks later.
The rockets had more sprouts than the charlottes, and even the maris pipers that stayed in their paper bag had a few sprouts and nearly as many as the charlottes. Let's hope that doesn't affect the crop!