Really poor potato harvest

[lacysue2]

i am a bit mad due to low rain fall my potato harvest was lower then I hoped from an early digging a early planted main crop. the total harvest was 135 potatoes weighing in at 43 kg. I hope other 5 plants which plan leaving for another few months do better then this plant did.

[Two_Sheds]

hi planted out some 2nd earlies in April .. they are Roosters

Rooster is a maincrop isn't it? Rooster - Potato Council
So leave them as long as you can

[greengas]

I have had very good harvest of Aaron pilot and Rocket, my main crop Sarpo Mira were only planted 2 weeks ago. We have not had too much rain but my advantage may be the fact the ground has not been used for years. We still have not had any significant rainfall in Bristol although there is light drizzle now as I type.

[poohpouri]

Rooster is a maincrop isn't it? Rooster - Potato Council
So leave them as long as you can

planting instructions had details about earlies late etc but lost the card

[chris]

I've had a good harvest, bar my first harvest - which I put down to impaitence. I'm growing mine at home, in sacks though so have been able to water if needed. In all honesty, I haven't watered that much though - but I did use a potato fertiliser - vitax I think?

Just pulled 1 rocket plant out and have 5 large potatoes (jacket spud size), and 4 ones slightly larger than gold balls. Then 2/3 teeny marble sized ones. Previous pulled 4 charlottes out (dont have batteries in my scales, so can't weigh) and had two bowl fulls worth - they were really nice. Not so keen on the rockets.

[Caro]

Just pulled 1 rocket plant out and have 5 large potatoes (jacket spud size), and 4 ones slightly larger than gold balls. .

errr. David Beckham's? Or anyone else's in particular?

[fleegle]

Disaster! - I didn't get any decent potatoes from my crop of first earlies. They were Charlottes and I had planted 1 per 12" tub, 8 tubs in total. When I did 'harvest' them there was plenty of them but they were riddled with small dark round patches which looked a bit like a mass of warts.

Does anyone have any ideas what this could be?

Anyway, totally put me off, so binned them - not on my compost heap though, couldn't risk it incase diseased. I can only think they possibly got infected from the gjillions of tichy snails that set up home around, on, underneath and in my potato buckets!

I shall try one last time next year if no success, then I shall give it up as a bad job and grow more lettuce - I like lettuce!

[SarzWix]

'Ulster Prince' are definitely on the growing list for next year - I tipped a bucket of them out today and had enough for all 5 of us They've been treated exactly the same as all the others, but produced about 3 times as much! They must have some drought tolerance A very nice spud too, similar to Charlotte.

[Sanjo]

Disaster! - I didn't get any decent potatoes from my crop of first earlies. They were Charlottes and I had planted 1 per 12" tub, 8 tubs in total. When I did 'harvest' them there was plenty of them but they were riddled with small dark round patches which looked a bit like a mass of warts.

Does anyone have any ideas what this could be?

Anyway, totally put me off, so binned them - not on my compost heap though, couldn't risk it incase diseased. I can only think they possibly got infected from the gjillions of tichy snails that set up home around, on, underneath and in my potato buckets!

I shall try one last time next year if no success, then I shall give it up as a bad job and grow more lettuce - I like lettuce!

Sounds like it could have been scab which your description resembles. If so, potatoes would have been perfectly edible as the scab scrapes off and does not affect the taste, they just look a bit unsightly.

[coreopsis]

I don't even bother checking mine yet as most of them(except Kestrel)are maincrop and went to the ground in May.Funny thing,Desirees which were the planted last are the first one to floer(beside last year rogue PFA)

[womble]

'Ulster Prince' are definitely on the growing list for next year - I tipped a bucket of them out today and had enough for all 5 of us They've been treated exactly the same as all the others, but produced about 3 times as much! They must have some drought tolerance A very nice spud too, similar to Charlotte.

But you never know, do you

Next year plant drought tolerant spuds and get a very wet summer.

[Lazgaot]

Just harvested all my earlies now. Probably a little late but they looked so poor a few weeks ago I thought I'd give them a bit longer. I've had two 5m beds, one with Maris Peer and the other International Kidney.
The Maris Peer bed filled one 10l bucket and the International Kidney filled two! I hope my main crop are more reliable and consistent.

[selfraising]

Pentland Javelin this year were rubbish, some didn't even shoot. However, my International Kidnedy did really well!

[Yorky]

Poor potato yield: shall I give up?

Having had poor yields of potatoes over the first twoo years of growing them, I made sure I was going to get it right this time - or so I thought.

I prepared the raised bed at the end of last October by spreading a few inches of well rotted donkey and horse manure over it ( full of worms so plenty of nutrients).

The seed potatoes- Unwin's organic 'Colleen' - already had good bud formation but I chitted them for another week anyway.

Immediately prior to planting, the raised bed was covered with more manure. They were planted on 4th April with 30cm row and seed spacing - a total of 21 seed potatoes (about 1.25 kg). They were planted 15cm deep with the soil/manure mounded up over them at time of planting and then once more after that.

They were well watered once or twice a week and given a liquid feed every 10 days or so.

They were harvested between the 18th and 24th July and the total yield was 8.7kg, which is very disappointing.

Can anyone explain why the yield might have been poor?

[hamster]

From what I've read on another thread about potatoes you're not the only one to be disappointed. May be this year is bad. I've had about 18lbs off 5 plants, but similar to you I can't explain why that should be so. I was pleased with that last year was a complete disaster with maris peer. This year I went back to charlotte. There is one plant left to dig. Has it got something to do with the variety?