Potatoes Made Easy

[garlicgirl06]

Apologies i'm in the West Midlands,Cannock area

I can't see where to put my area in my bio and i keep forgetting to put it in when i write stuff. Forgive me - as i get more used to being here i'm sure it'll all happen naturally.

My current pH is 6.8

Thank you zazen999 for most welcome & speedy advice.

[Jeanied]

I can't see where to put my area in my bio and i keep forgetting to put it in when i write stuff. Forgive me - as i get more used to being here i'm sure it'll all happen naturally.

My current pH is 6.8

Thank you zazen999 for most welcome & speedy advice.

GG all you need to do is fill in the location bit in your user controlled profile - 'user cp' top left hand button on the green bar at the top up there ^^^^

[garlicgirl06]

Thanks Jeanied. All done now.

[zazen999]

For a pH of 6.8, I'd not bother changing the pH myself. Most veg grows best at pH 6.5 - and I don't like to muck about too much if at all possible. Just adding your manure should bring it down a tad. If you are wanting to avoid scab - then you have to take the pH down to 5 and then bring it back up again for your next crop - so personally, I'd just go with it. I use coffee grounds at pH 6.2 and that's enough for one season.

[Kristen]

"2) When can i plant 1st & 2nd earlies with regard to question 1 and do all other spuds get planted at the same time, thru to maincrop King Edward."

You can plant them all at the same time. 1st / 2nd / Main refers to the length of time they take to mature.

Taking a hypothetical example: your plot for Mains is ready, but the 1st's plot is not quite ready, so nothing to stop you planting your Mains first, and then getting the plot for the 1st's ready.

1st's will be up above the ground the quickest, and you will have to protect their leaves from the frost. You will be able to do that for a bit by earthing up so that the leaves are covered ... but there will come a point where you can't get any more soil on them. You may then cover with fleece on frosty nights ... I also put grass clippings on mine (as it acts as a mulch later on too) ... these are the things that influence the planting date, and you want to work backwards from the predicted "last frost" date in your area. Its a balance ... I want New Potatoes as early as possible, but don't want too much hassle trying to keep the frost off them! I grow some potatoes in Bags and Tubs for my really early crop which takes some of the "haste" out of planting 1st earlies outside

"4) all my seed spuds arrived today including maincrop. I get the chitting of earlies but what do i do now with the others?"

If you have space chit them all - in a cool, but light, place. You can store them, but if they start sprouting you need to "chit" them instead - its the same thing, of course, but if you have long shoots on the tubers, because they were in the dark - they will break off when you plant them - which defeats the object. Nice short, stocky, chits don't break off so easily

"5) Can someone with some clarity tell me what i'm looking for with the chitting and readiness. I think i have it sussed & i read something that makes me think i've got it all wrong. In some pictures it's like a little nest of growth but then people talk about removing bits and i get confused"

The tubers will sprout - mostly at one end, but not necessarily exclusively. If they are kept cool, but with some light, they will "grow" very slowly, and the "short, stocky, sprouts" are what are referred to as Chits.

Each Chit will produce a separate plant. When you plant you can reduce the number of chits (rub some out with your finger) to 3 or 4. The fewer you have the less crowded the individual plants will be, and the bigger the potatoes you get. Leave more chits on and you will have more, smaller, potatoes. I just leave them be and let nature take its course, particularly with 1st Early as we like "New Potatoes". But perhaps for Main Crop Baking spuds its worth reducing the chits to get monster baking spuds

"6) When my seed spuds arrived i'm not kidding i couldn't find a single eye."

Some varieties have a nice pink area about the eyes, which helps! You might be able to find the mark at one end where the potato was originally attached to the mother-plant (a bit like an the umbilical cord), the eye's will be at the opposite end. Just examine them every week and turn around any that are upside down and start sprouting from the bottom!

[garlicgirl06]

Wow!!

Kristen that was the coolest most succint reply i could have hoped for thank you so much. I too will be planting the 1st earlies in pots. I decided that simply because i was unsure about the plot being ready & thought this might be the safest bet. As it's a "new to me" garden i'm not even sure what the weathers going to be like, my light & shade,etc. I moved from Devon so i know it's going to be a helluva difference.

For definite i'm going to be crossing my fingers & praying a lot but with help like this i know i have a better chance of some successes. Well to be honest it's already a success as i'm spending more time outdoors already & after 5 years where i was stuck indoors a lot due to illness i feel great.

[Mr Potato Head]

I have spent a very worthwhile time reading the whole of this thread and want to thank the contributors, especially tattieman.

I know so much more about potatoes than I did before reading this and feel a lot more confident about embarking on my first attempt at growing them this year.

[alexkid909]

Hi Fellow Potatoers, I say that, however this will be my first year growing pots and I have a question on compost.

Throughout the last year I've been gradually filling up my compost bin with veg waste, grass cutting, eggshells, and cardboard loo roll tubes. I now have a bin which is brimming over and has some lovely sweet smelling compost ready to take from the hatch.

Can I use this to fill my newly purchased potato grow-sacks and t grow my seed pots in? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy a bale of Multi Purpose?

PS. As Mr. Potato Head said, thanks to everyone that's contributed to this thread, I started reading it ages ago and got about 7 pages in, but wanted to ask my question before bedtime

[poddington-pea]

hi-im new here but have been dabbling with growing for many years-just in a veg plot in my garden nothing fancy!

have just cleared out last years faliures of potato plants from big round bag type potato planters,and thats what i want to ask about.

they were chitted,planted in march ish,harvested 1st lot of salad pots around july-but there was NOTHING!! we had plenty of plant,all earthed up as you should,but nothing in there at all!

Now-I've taken over the growing this year (hubby did it last year) so want to check if his method was useless,or if it was a dodgy batch (had two other potato growers that i have emptied today and these had a few tatties in but nothing great-had all gone rotten now anyway-we kinda lost interest after the dissapointment of the 1st's LOL)

anyway-this is how other half did it-

newspaper on bottom of bag

planted chitted earlies on compost and chicken poo (approx 3 inches im guessing he used)

earthed up as required,

watered well (prob not as well as should of!)

resulted in great big huge plants,lovely flowers! but little or no potatoes :-(

should i

Abandon chicken poo?

keep damp/dont allow to dry out when planted?

pinch out flowers?

too many in bag (i think there were around 5 in a bag)

too few in a bag (would overcrowding force more tatties?)

i have got my earlies of international kidneys-shall i start to chit them now-i was planing to plant again into the potatow grow sack things in a polytunnel (not heated as such, but has got a frost free heater in there to keep frost off)

im a bit lost,but have the need to beat other halfs growing skills ;-)

thanks for any help, and if you half made it through my long rambling post-well done!!

[Kristen]

"Abandon chicken poo?"

I reckon there was too much nitrogen, so they made "all leaf" rather than "lots of root / tubers" (My "sense" is that this was the problem)

"keep damp/dont allow to dry out when planted?"

I find that my bags dry out quite easily when the plants are large AND they are HARD to get properly wet again; its when the plants are large, and the tubers bulking up, that they need plenty of water. I don't have a problem when the plants are small though.

"pinch out flowers?"

I have read that competition growers do that - so the plant doesn't waste energy on flowering. I reckon that if it made that much difference commercial growers would do it to If you have time then taking the flowers off will help (but may be a tiny amount,
maybe more ...)

"too many in bag (i think there were around 5 in a bag)"

5 sounds like a lot. I grow 3 tubers in a bag. (My bags are a bit larger diameter than a 60L multi-purpose compost bag)

"too few in a bag (would overcrowding force more tatties?)"

Yes, overcrowding will create more tatties, but they will be smaller. If you want larger potatoes the recommendation is to reduce the number of chits to 3 when you plant them (don't do it earlier in case they break off for any reason and you then have few/none left!)

"i have got my earlies of international kidneys-shall i start to chit them now-i was planing to plant again into the potatow grow sack things in a polytunnel (not heated as such, but has got a frost free heater in there to keep frost off)"

Yes, chit now. Chitting usually takes about 6 weeks - so you would be planting out at end of Feb say.

[tattieman]

Just popped on here to see if anyone was still reading this and I am delighted that you are still finding it useful.
I think all the questions have been superbly answered and there is nothing I can really add.

[shirlthegirl43]

Just popped on here to see if anyone was still reading this and I am delighted that you are still finding it useful.
I think all the questions have been superbly answered and there is nothing I can really add.

Hi tattieman, I was delighted to get some of your seed potatoes at a nearby garden centre yesterday. Any tips for getting a really good return on my Golden Wonders? Not sure if I will be able to put them in the ground as we may be moving this year sometime and I am blowed if I am leaving crops as valuable as that in the soil!

[alexkid909]

Hi All, can anyone advise me on this?

Hi Fellow Potatoers, I say that, however this will be my first year growing pots and I have a question on compost.

Throughout the last year I've been gradually filling up my compost bin with veg waste, grass cutting, eggshells, and cardboard loo roll tubes. I now have a bin which is brimming over and has some lovely sweet smelling compost ready to take from the hatch.

Can I use this to fill my newly purchased potato grow-sacks and t grow my seed pots in? Or should I just bite the bullet and buy a bale of Multi Purpose?

PS. As Mr. Potato Head said, thanks to everyone that's contributed to this thread, I started reading it ages ago and got about 7 pages in, but wanted to ask my question before bedtime

[tattieman]

Hi tattieman, I was delighted to get some of your seed potatoes at a nearby garden centre yesterday. Any tips for getting a really good return on my Golden Wonders? Not sure if I will be able to put them in the ground as we may be moving this year sometime and I am blowed if I am leaving crops as valuable as that in the soil!

You could try growing them in polypots and then you could remove them from the garden but they would take alot of shifting. Get them chitted and that should advance them by 3 weeks.

ALexkid just add some good fertiliser to your compost and you will get a crop.

[shirlthegirl43]

Thank you tattieman