Disappointing first harvest, what did I do wrong?

[Phil66]

Ello all,

First post for me. I planted some seed potatoes that I got from Dobies back in April. I planted them in potato planting bags from Dobies too. I did everything I was told, ie, planted 3 inches from bottom and re-covered as the shoots got to 3 or 4 inches high until the sack was full. The plants got to nearly 5 feet tall which was a problem in itself to control them in the winds we had. I planted 5 Charlottes in one, hoping to harvest early to get small new potatoes, 3 Vivaldis in another and 3 Red Duke of York in the final one. I have just returned from a 2 week holiday and most of the plants looked like they had died off so I thought I'd harvest the Charlottes, I got about 30 spuds about the size of a golf ball, I didn't think that was too good so I decided to empty the Red Duke of York, I got a grand total of 10 spuds, ranging from fist size to golf ball size, there were about four shoots with little spuds on about the size of a grape. I have to say though that the root system on the Yorks was huge. I decided then to look at the Vivaldis, I took a fair portion of the soil from around one plant and there was about 5 potatoes of good size, the two remaning plants were showing quite a few good size spuds so i have put the soil back in and will leave them until we need some more.

Any ideas what went wrong? This harvest would've been a lot cheaper in Sainsbury's by the time I've accounted for the compost.

One other question, can I re-use the compost for a winter crop?

Cheers

Phil

[Two_Sheds]

Because your foliage grew to 5 foot tall, I guess they didn't have enough light.

Mine on the lotty are barely 2 foot tall, bushy and healthy, with lots of lovely taters underneath

[Phil66]

Ahh, so is it ok to chop the tops off periodically? I am new to all of this. If I can chop the tops off is there a certain place to do it? Or should I put them in a lighter part of the garden? It's difficult though and the patio is an ideal location. Mind you, the patio is north facing so get a fair bit of shade.

Cheers

Phil

[Two_Sheds]

the patio is north facing so get a fair bit of shade.

that's your problem right there, I'm afraid

[Pies]

It might be the compost/soil was very rich,this makes pots grow tall and put their efforts into producing flowers ans fruit rather than tubers

[Phil66]

Oh, right, I was thinking that I would get a bumper harvest because they got so big. You learn something every day eh?

What type of spud do you recommend for my winter spuds? Out of these three I like the Dukes the best.

Cheers

Phil

[SarzWix]

I've also had quite a poor yield from my container potatoes this year, and am trying to work out where it might have gone wrong. I think Two-Sheds has a good point about yours - being on a North facing patio has meant that they have 'reached' for the light, thus growing those huge tops. I don't think pruning the tops would have helped, snipping them off would have reduced the amount of light they were able to absorb.

I suspect my low yields were down to not being watered enough at critical times - all the rain coming down doesn't penetrate through the foliage enough to give the containers a proper watering...

[Phil66]

All good info thanks, I am going to put them at the bottom of the garden next time. I used general purpose compost from Focus, can I re-use it for the winter?

Cheers

Phil

[SarzWix]

It won't have much left in the way of nutrition, if you can add some chicken pellets/blood, fish & bone/seaweed pellets/growmore to it first, it could be re-used. I'm not sure I'd use it for potatoes again though, just in case of disease.

[jackie j]

I have grown potatoes in a potato bag for the first time this year fed with potatoe fertiliser and I was very dissapointed with the result dont know if I will bother next year.

[Phil66]

It won't have much left in the way of nutrition, if you can add some chicken pellets/blood, fish & bone/seaweed pellets/growmore to it first, it could be re-used. I'm not sure I'd use it for potatoes again though, just in case of disease.

I remember that when I was a child I used to throw a potato that had "spread roots" into a hole in my parents flower border adn I would get a great load of spuds from the one seed, never did anything special at all and I did it year after year. That's why I thought I could possible re-use the compost, otherwise it is cheaper to buy from a supermarket because the compost costs about £20 and that's a lot of spuds!

Phil

[SarzWix]

I think part of the problem is being encouraged to earth up so much on first and second earlies, when they don't really have time to grow another batch of potatoes further up the stem before the tops die off. Really, you'd be better off with a bigger space in surface area rather than height. But it also means that a lot of compost is 'wasted' earthing up where the only potatoes you get are very small, and, the plant grows a lot more stalk, and 'top' than it needs.
Where the method comes into it's own is when growing a 'maincrop' potato, which keeps growing long enough for the potatoes further up the stalk to grow to a more sensible size. The downside is that they aren't ready as early and so you risk blight, and the variety of maincrop salad type spuds is smaller (I can only think of Harlequin and Pink Fir Apple off the top of my head)

[Woofster]

I have had a disappointing crop from my potatoes in containers this year. I grew Charlotte, Sante, Kestrel, Maya Queen, Cara and Pink Fir Apple in 160 litre containers - four to a container. They all grew well but died back very early. I did water quite a lot and the containers were in full sun. My only thought is that the containers being black plastic they may have absorbed the heat too much. Or maybe I put too many spuds in each container. I grew some Swift, Charlotte and Kestrel in a deep raised bed and they did better but not as well as my spuds last year in a similar bed which were not only plentiful but huge. I opted for containers this year because my soil is chalky and last years spuds were affected with scab. Seems you can't win !

[Two_Sheds]

Spuds on my lotty = fab
Spuds in pots on my patio = rubbish (tiny, and not many of them, despite feeding & watering)

I won't bother again

[rustylady]

Agree with TS - allotment spuds very good. I only did one pot on the patio as an experiment but won't bother again. I really think they do better in the ground.