Good year for spuds?

[roitelet]

Yes, mine have been good too. Armandine, Brenadette and Pink fir apple, dispite very dry weather and I only gave them a good soak once.

[rustylady]

Good yields from my spuds this year. Rocket first early, Kestrel were huge potatoes. Still got Rooster in the ground.

[cptncrackoff]

I only grow salads and earlies, we usually get given sacks of maincrop at work.

Last year was very disappointing, i grew in buckets with straight m.p compost and growmore, they dried out frequently and i had few, hard potatoes.

This year I grew in potato planters and buckets, i planted charlotte and....something else....i forget!! lol used a mixture of m.p compost, jab no.2 innes and jab topsoil, feeding when the plants were mature with tomorite.
I've had mixed results, a scattering of small and medium tatties near the top of the tubs/buckets...then a big void, then several huge...bigger than tennis balls(big for salads and earlies) right at the bottom of the containers.
Overall a better result than last year but still could be improved.
jon

[Dead Dogs]

Just finnished harvesting my tatties from the poly. Pentland Javelin produced loads, some the size of tennis balls. The few Kestrels I grow in the poly had masive tatties. Can't say if this is a good year, as this is only my second year and first for these tatties. I have notice that like Creemteez I will need to earth up the outside crop more next year. Although I have not suffered from lack of rain, there has been too many days of strong cold winds.
Will be see how the outside crop had faired tonight.

[Glutton4...]

I planted Swift and Record, and have had fab results from both. They weren't planted until Easter week, and I watered them well to begin with as we had a really long dry spell back then.

My King Edwards haven't been investigated yet, so, fingers crossed!

[rustylady]

Just dug up my Nadine - beautiful spuds, no scab. Will definitely grow them again next year.

[jonohanson]

Poor yields of earlies and it looks to be a poor yield of maincrop, the plants seem to have died rether quickly, although this year they got a bit over run with thistles, and I think they didn't get enough water or food. Also lots of little holes in many spuds.

A good manuring for next year I think

[Piggle]

Mine were good although I started then in trenches and backfilled - far too deep , I had to dig about 2ft to get them out. Stupid idea!

I did purple Eyes Seedling, Pink Duke of York , Casablanca and another one which I can't remember ( maybe Kestrel).

Still got Pink Fir Apple, Mayan "something or other" and some King Eddies in the ground. Blight can't be bothered making it's way down to me as I'm stuck in a corner.

[Alison]

Blight can't be bothered making it's way down to me as I'm stuck in a corner.

I can't be far from you and we've had surprisingly few blight alerts round here this year, far less than last when it was a bit of a worry as to whether I'd get anything. Thankfully only the outdoor toms got it last year and I acted quickly to stop it spreading to the pots but this year has been far more relaxed

[Potstubsdustbins]

Well I finally got round to harvesting that dustbin and this is the result, just under 20lb of very nice usable spuds.

The dustbin was set with 4 tubers on the 11/04 so as not really had the full 20 weeks I like to give them.

Colin

[Storming Norman]

Most of my pots have been low yields this year [particularly the earlies] and the picassos and Nadine were full of slug holes. Its been dry with deluges, just enough to keep the slugs happy clearly.

But impressively the Harelquins are amazing and I recommend these to all. A maincrop salad variety I think, but quite early and better than intl kidney by far. Whats more no slug holes, yes I think I have found the variety that suits my soil. They are really tasty and don't seem to green up near the surface. I was impressed.

[Maccabee]

This was my first year growing spuds so nothing to compare with, but i was impressed with the earlies (Charlotte and Accent); good yields and very tasty. But digging up a few maincrop it seems they've all been attacked; every spud i dig up looks more like swiss cheese than a potato Considering the space (i devoted about a quarter of the garden to them) and time they took up it's quite disappointing really. Good to see most people had a good spud year though

[binley100]

Rocket, charlotte and nadine , ok not massive yields but good and we're still eating nadine. King Eddies have just been dug and they are as small as the earlies .....am thinking not enough water. We still have some other varieties in and the pink firs still have their haulms growing..

[reetnproper]

I've dug up one King Edward and got a nice 4.5lb (sorry I only work in old money ) of usable spuds. I did find another 3 Jacket sized ones and a couple of smaller 'roasting' sized ones as well but they had rotted away somewhat and then there was an ENORMOUS one (size of a Honeydew melon - a large one) but it was hollow inside ...... not rotted away just hollow. OH was gutted as he had decided he wanted that one for his tea but it just felt too light and sound really hollow, so I cut it open.

Did wonder if the rotten ones were a sign of things to come but they were positioned towards the outide of the earthed up mound, and, once I'd found the healthy potatoes further in and down, I figured the damaged ones had just got a load more water/rain than those burried a bit deeper which had caused the rotting.

I unearthed a few from the next plant in over the weekend, just enough to for what I wanted and then carefully re-earthed up the rest of the plant. I got five lovely 'roasting' sized spuds and 2 gorgeous Jackets out. I'll be rooting for more tatties later on.



So all in all things are looking promising but I'm not counting my tatties until they're all out of the ground .

Reet
x

[WendyC]

I have had an enormous crop of Charlottes. I grew the same number of plants this year and last year. Last year I harvested 34lb and this year there were 57lb. Perhaps I made more of an effort to water as it was very dry early on, but I can't believe my efforts with the watering can would have made up for the lack of rain. Some of the potatoes were huge, as were the Accord I harvested a while back. These didn't produce a huge crop, as is expected with 1st earlies but there were few really big ones. Not quite the "new" potatoes I was imagining! Cut the tops of the "Blue Danube" as these so called blight resistant spuds have been the first to fall prey to blight.