Potatoes

[sarah_hawky]

Morning all! 2 questions about planting my seed potatoes ....

1. I use potato bags, 3 seeds in each. Usually I quarter fill, put the seeds and a few inches of soil in to cover, then keep adding soil as they grow. However, I watched a video where the gardener put the seeds in half way then filled the bags up to the top with soil. This seems a ‘simpler’ way, but what are people’s thoughts?!

2. I’ve too many seed potatoes - can I save some for next year? And if so, how should I store?

Many thanks!!!

[Bonjour]

When I grew them in bags, I used old compost bags, Pentland Javelin seed potatoes, two to a bag.

I put only about 4" of soil in the bottom of the bag, then the potatoes, then about 4" to cover. I rolled the bags down to just above soil level. When the plants were up about 6", I rolled the bag sides up to the top of the plants and topped up with soil. I kept doing this until the bags were full.

I had a really decent crop, though not as heavy as growing in the ground. My reckoning is, the lower in the bag you plant the seed potatoes, the more roots you will get as you earth up, so more spuds.

I've never tried carrying seed potatoes over from one year to next, so can't help on that one.

[burnie]

I doubt you will be able to save the seed potatoes until next year, is there no other option to plant them somewhere?

[Chippy Minton]

We always just put them in the bottom 6 inches or so and then fill up to the top, including in the potato barrels so that's about 60 cm (2 feet) or compost on top. They don;t seem to mind and it's less effort.

They tend to shrivel up if kept. Maybe in the fridge they'd be OK?

[Bren In Pots]

Hello and welcome to the vine Sara
I grow my potatoes in old recycling boxes planting them 4inch from the bottom then I fill the box to the top with a mix of dalek compost, leaf mould and garden soil. This way works well for me I've even had good results growing a single potato in a bucket when I've run out of space.
Like others have said I don't think you can store seed potatoes for very long.

[Small pumpkin]

See, told you, you’d get more replies and considerably better than the nonsense I come out with

[solway cropper]

It's a bit of a myth that if you keep topping up with soil the plant will keep on producing tubers...certainly as far as earlies grow as they produce all their spuds in a limited vertical space. What potatoes need more than anything else is plenty of food and water. If you keep them supplied with both you'll see the results. I put one seed in a plastic builders bucket which has about 10cm of potting mix in the bottom, cover with about another 10cm and leave them to it. Any spuds that come to surface are covered over and that's it. My best result is just short of 3kg of Charlottes from one seed but that was a bit of a fluke.

[Penellype]

I plant mine in 30 litre pots which hold nearly as much compost as the bags. I put a couple of inches of compost in the bottom then put the seed potatoes on it and fill the buckets to within an inch or 2 of the top. Potatoes produce roots that go down from the seed potato and these do not produce potatoes. They produce stems that go upwards and this is where the new potatoes form. Therefore the lower (within reason) that you put the potatoes the more underground stem you have and in theory the better crop of potatoes. If you see potatoes forming on the surface you need to add a little more compost to stop them going green. They grow better if you put them on soil and bury the holes at the bottom of the bucket or bag so that roots can grow down through them - this helps them find more water.

Seed potatoes won't keep until next year, but you may be able to keep some in the fridge to plant later, maybe after you have harvested an early crop, and if you can cover them in the autumn or bring bags into a garage or greenhouse when it gets cold you may get new potatoes at Christmas. This will depend a lot on whether or not they get blight though.