Potato storage - first, second & mains

[Forage420]

These are Maris Bard (second earlies) harvested last week.

I'm not sure how these have fared in terms of yield but I have recorded the weight and the amount of plants grown if anyone's interested..

I did notice, upon closer inspection, burrow holes from slugs and woodlice, not huge amounts, but enough to be annoying. I notice the larger tubers are usually most affected by pests.

These are now curing on a table in my garage before being sacked up in a week or two.

[Penellype]

I found similar holes in one of my buckets of Maris Bard, other varieties grown under the same conditions didn't have them. Maybe that variety is particularly attractive to pests, I don't know as its the first time I have grown it.

If you are going to store them I would pick out the damaged ones to store separately and use first.

[Forage420]

Hi everyone, so some follow up on this:

What I did

All potatoes were harvested gradually throughout the year and weight recorded. I tried my best to keep good records but some harvest weights seem to be absent. All potatoes were left for a few hours in the cool after being dug up, out of direct sunlight.
Potatoes were then brought into an unheated, cool and dark brick built garage space on the same day and laid out onto a table where they were left for between 1-2weeks or more to dry out. After going through this 'curing' period I inspected the potatoes and removed any with obvious disease or very badly damaged ones. I noted that some potatoes suffering from superficial damage had healed over so I decided to store them along with the unblemished potatoes as they looked perfectly edible.
Potatoes that were unreasonably small or damaged when digging them out were not included in the weight recorded and thrown back onto the compost heap.

Harvest weights and averages

The total weight of potatoes recorded was 171.23 kilos. 224 tubers were planted. Making an average of 0.65kilo per tuber planted. I think this is quite a poor harvest average despite the fact that 171.23 kilos obviously seems like a lot at face value. I feel many mistakes were made and many improvements could be made...

What I could have done much better

I made the mistake last year of preparing my potato beds by running along a back hoe in the middle of the bed to create a channel. I then planted into the base of the channel. The idea of this is to mound the soil back into and around the emerging tubers. I can say this is one of the worst mistakes I've ever made. Getting the soil profile for each bed was extremely difficult because of the heavy clay. This was the case even on beds that had been mulched more than others.

As the tubers emerged the process of mounding the soil back into and around the tubers was even more unrewarding and difficult. The mounds that looked established at the start of sowing had gradually sunken and capped and the clay had a tendency to clod and become unworkable. In most cases I would have to squat and break up soil around the base of the tuber by hand, with the added difficulty of not being able to see very easily around the base of the plant to make sure I wasn't crushing it, or if a big clod of earth had rolled over and broken some of the leaves or stem.
I would not use this method ever again to grow potatoes.

Some of the potato tubers had to be planted on a plot that I had taken on the same year and needed digging and weeding just before sowing the them. No compost had been added for some years and the weed pressure was high. Weeds took over some beds quite quickly which would have no doubt lead to light and nutrient competition affecting the final yield. I did not have time to arrange compost for these new beds, otherwise I would have mulched with compost and planted into them and not dug at all as weed seeds from below were brought to the surface to germinate.

What I would do differently

In future I will plant the tubers 4inch or so deep into holes made with a trowel. I could be wrong but I think digging the soil may have contributed to the damage from soil burrowing insects. This year I aim to grow all the potatoes no-dig. I think the no-dig method will make the potatoes easier to harvest when the time comes, and only a minimal amount of work will be needed to brush some soil up around the base of the plants to protect the developing potatoes from getting light on them.

Beds generally run north to south but do not have much protection from harsh winds and get bashed about. I will be fitting a wind break this year, either natural or artificial.

I will evenly spread ONLY compost onto all beds from now on. I'm not certain but it's possible that spreading manures which have not properly rotted down can lead to an increase in biological activity in the soil, which may affect developing tubers. I have in the past applied cow/horse straight onto beds and this won't be happening again. I didn't have the space to compost. I do now.

Keep better records! Some harvests are missing or inaccurately recorded. This may account for a lack of accurate data +- 20%

I will be using seed from last years crop and hope that as the parent plant will have adapted to the soil conditions their offspring will be better at growing next year -- let's see!

Grow less potatoes! I plan to use much less space next year to grow less potatoes. I've increased the bed widths from approximately 3 foot to 4 foot. This will allow me to sow 2 rows of tubers into one bed instead of 1 row per bed. We still have approximately 80-90kilos of potatoes left to eat, and a lot will spoil before we get around to eating them. More space will be freed up for other veg.

I practice the standard bed rotation as per last year so this will stay the same.

I will be using space on my allotment to grow herbs and plants beneficial to insects. I'm hoping this will increase the biodiversity and lead to healthier plants all round.

I think that covers it

[Mr H]

Hi everyone, so some follow up on this:



Harvest weights and averages

The total weight of potatoes recorded was 171.23 kilos. 224 tubers were planted. Making an average of 0.65kilo per tuber planted.

I don't think that's bad. my first year of potatoes last year was 12 Charlotte seeds that yielded am average of 500g per plant

on that basis I'm planting about 60 seed potatoes this year with the aim of getting 30kg max of potatoes to see us thorough the year.

mix of Charlotte and red duke of York

[smallblueplanet]

What I would do differently

In future I will plant the tubers 4inch or so deep into holes made with a trowel...and only a minimal amount of work will be needed to brush some soil up around the base of the plants to protect the developing potatoes from getting light on them...

We cover ours with grass cuttings from mowing the lawn. Obvs not much use if you've no grass.

[Mr H]

We cover ours with grass cuttings from mowing the lawn. Obvs not much use if you've no grass.

im going to try this. why didn't I think of it myself

[smallblueplanet]

Works fine Mr H, occasional mess from blackbirds throwing stuff about or a bit of wind blowing

[Can the Man]

I store my potatoes in thick brown paper bags in my garage. How long they last depends on the variety and size of potato - small ones go soft quicker than big ones. The best keepers I've had are Sarpo Axona, which I was still eating in June this year, although admittedly they were starting to sprout. I find the larger potatoes of most varieties will keep until Christmas, maincrop into the new year. How quickly they start to sprout probably depends a bit on the temperature.

Another factor is how old the potatoes are - very young new potatoes (the sort you can scrape the skin off with your fingers) will not stay that way. The skins will harden in storage.

As for keeping them in the ground, the main risk apart from the possibility of blight is that slugs will start eating them. I have also had problems with rats digging up potatoes grown in a raised bed at the stables.

I e not had any slug or rat problems, but I have had cock pheasants digging them out and picking at them there leaving it and digging out another one.

[Bonjour]

I e not had any slug or rat problems, but I have had cock pheasants digging them out and picking at them there leaving it and digging out another one.

I've had the same thing with crows.