Maris Piper - How Many Tubers to plant in two beds - (10.6ft x 3ft) & (14ft x 6ft)

[Chef_uk]

Those are my two beds that had the roots and onions in so will be using them for spuds next year. How many tubers should i am to get in each bed? I'm thinking it will be around 16 for the 10ft bed in two rows of 8, and 27 tubers in the bigger bed in 3 rows of 9.

Is that too many though to feed a family of 5 with minimal storage facility?

[Vince G]

Sounds about right. Last year was my first year on the allotment with maincrop spuds and I did 3 18ft rows of MPs, 2 ft apart with 1½ ft between each seed spud.

To give you an idea of quantity, there's just me and the missus and we have about half a sack left still which should see us through for a couple of months yet. They're not huge either, as there was a bit of blight on them so cut them down about a month earlier than I'd have liked to, so we've been using them since early October. MPs apparently have lowish resistance to blight, which I didn't know when I planted them, so I'm gonna look for a different spud with the same characteristics as MP this year.

So assuming yours reach maturity without any blight troubles, you'll have plenty for a family of 5 well into the winter. Storage wise, ours are just in a hessian sack in the shed, they're fine in there - any dark outside cupboard will do really.

[solway cropper]

Whether or not you'll have enough spuds for a family of five depends on how much you like spuds. I normally plant about 100 seed potatoes (first and second earlies) and it feeds three of us for about seven months. I get my maincrops from a farm along the road.