2nd earlies, salad and main crop

[hawthorns]

when should 2nd earlies, salad and main crop potatoes be in by

[piskieinboots]

This should help:

First earlies - plant March, harvest June/July
Second earlies - plant April, harvest July/August
Maincrops - plant April, harvest August/September
Late maincrops - plant April/May, harvest September until first frosts

[Capsid]

I think you can plant them all at the same time (Easter weekend) and then harvest them at different times. Earlies can be harvested at around 12 weeks (ie early), and main crop in September or later.

[teakdesk]

Timings are very dependant upon your location, your growing conditions and your varieties but...

1/ if you plant too early then no harm is done, the seed will just grow later when the conditions become right. How do I know? Well, if you miss a potato and leave it in the ground after harvest it will grow next year quite happily.... no harm is done by being in the ground over winter!!

2/ if you plant your seed potatoes late then they will still be growing when BLIGHT starts its rounds. Many growers try to plant early to avoid being infected with blight.

So you can sow potatoes early without harm but sowing late could mean damage from blight.

Just remember that if you plant before growing conditions are right the seed potato will wait before it starts to grow. This means you cannot use the "12 weeks for earlies; 20 weeks for maincrop" timings; you must not start counting until the plant starts growing.

[Alison]

So you can sow potatoes early without harm but sowing late could mean damage from blight.

Not necessarily true, whilst the seed potato itself may well be OK, if there is foilage above ground it can get badly hit by frost if planted too early so it can be a delicate balance between not planting too early or too late.

Re the original post, amongst other things you ask about salad potatoes, these can be earlies, second earlies or main crop depending on the type and therefore will mature according to that rather than the fact they are salad type