Small potatoes

[monkeyboy]

My RDOY pots were reasonably sized. I harvested my first bucket of King Edwards. They were small - new potatoes sized.

I don't know if this is down to the weather, too many seed potatoes (I think I put 2-3 in each 20 litre bucket), or not enough feed.

I have one bucket left to harvest. I'm feeding with tomorite weekly. Anything else I could be doing to boost the harvest?

[Jay-ell]

Do you want lots of small of a few large spuds?

I'm sure someone once told me that the more eyes you leave on the potato the more spuds you get but the smaller they are.

[Bad Boy Club]

3 per 20 litres does sound somewhat crowded.

Having said that my Pink Fir Apples were quite pathetic & were planted in the ground with more than enough space. I put it down to the extreme weather despite keeping them well watered so I would say all bets are off this year

[Vince G]

it's the weather. We had 8 weeks without rain here in Suffolk, so I could not get enough water on my spuds, Maris Pipers

A couple of rows are ok as they're in shady spots that stayed damp, spuds big enough to cut in two for roasties, but the majority are big enough for individual roasties, with the tiddlers for mash.

Disappointing, but every year something goes to pot, this year its clearly pots

[cwmmawr]

My earlies in buckets were great this year but main crop hopeless

Must be heat I think although I thought I watered well

[Mark_Riga]

King Edwards are not a very good variety outside of farm fields and are renown for giving quite poor yields. Desiree gives a much better crop. For a good quality blight resistant variety, grow Carolus a newer variety.

Hessayon (1985) on king edwards:"still grown by gardeners who are looking for cooking quality rather than quantity"
and desiree "very heavy cropper and succeeds in all soil types... good drought resistance and...an excellent flavour".