Successional Tatties

[Penellype]

I shoved a couple of sprouting tubers into a bucket of compost in my friends greenhouse a couple of months ago - I just put them in a couple of inches from the bottom and filled the bucket with compost, no earthing up needed. Yesterday there were some small green leaves poking up through the top of the compost. I've no idea what variety they were - my friend gave me them to plant, so they are probably ones she bought to eat.

[Bigmallly]

Ok Koky, planted 1st Oct'15 & still going strong after 13 weeks:

[Bigmallly]

Update!

Reet...............According to my calendar I should be lifting these tatties tomorrow but I have to dial emma which maybe you can help me with. Some of the haulms were dying back nicely but have now started throwing new side shoots & I don't know what to do............would you lift them, have a furtle, or wait till the foliage has died altogether. PS None of the buckets flowered which if I remember correctly is a characteristic of Osprey.

[Penellype]

Have a furtle - if the foliage is still growing you may be able to harvest some tatties carefully and replant the haulms for more later.

[Bigmallly]

Cheers Pene, I'll have a look tomorrow. Am planning on using whatever I harvest for this years 52 week challenge as I thought I was confident I could grow Osprey all year round.........................me & my big mouth.............

[Bigmallly]

Update!

Well, I firstly I'm pleased that I've managed to grow spuds all year round.....................I was hoping to empty the Oct sown buckets at the end of Feb (20 weeks) but as you can see they are nowhere near ready, may have to wait another month for the haulms to die back:

[vixylix]

Woo - well done BM! Challenge complete

[lolie]

I love this idea and am wondering how I can adapt it to my climate.

I'm in Sydney (Australia) so my major challenges are a long, hot summer, a short winter, and intermediate seasons where the temperature tends to fluctuate wildly between extremes.

The idea of a steady supply of potatoes is extremely appealing and I really want to make it happen.

Suggestions on how I can adapt this idea are welcome.

[Bigmallly]

Hi lolie & welcome to this side of the hemisphere................I wish I had your dilemma....................the problem part is winter as the days are shorter/colder & obviously risk of frost would kill them. So as long as you can keep them in temps above freezing then you should be able to grow them.

[lolie]

Hi lolie & welcome to this side of the hemisphere................I wish I had your dilemma....................the problem part is winter as the days are shorter/colder & obviously risk of frost would kill them. So as long as you can keep them in temps above freezing then you should be able to grow them.

I'm pretty confident I can protect them from the cold. I've grown them before in a big container on my balcony and I have a small greenhouse in my balcony as well.

What intrigued me about your idea was that you used what look like small containers. That's an idea I really love as it would allow me to move them elsewhere according to the weather. 9 litre buckets are cheap as anything here but the buckets you used look even smaller and smaller buckets would give me more flexibility in keeping them protected from both the cold and the extreme heat.

[Bigmallly]

If memory serves me right, I believe they are 10 litre capacity. They are flower buckets collected from local supermarkets.

[Bigmallly]

Well, Would You Believe It?

How strange!..........I've just emptied the 10 buckets I overwintered. I did a little experiment, well you wouldn't expect any other would you?...................I fed & watered 5 buckets & left 5 buckets to their own devices.
The watered buckets yielded Zilch while the bone dry buckets yielded loads of smallish but perfect spuds which will now be planted in a bed, I know I said I wasn't going to grow spuds this year but seems a shame to throw them as I have sacks of spuds still to eat.

[Penellype]

Interesting. Had the foliage died down on the plants? I wonder if the ones that were dry had formed potatoes early as an insurance because they were stressed and dying from lack of water, while the ones that had been fed and watered were happily producing foliage and waiting to make potatoes later.

[Bigmallly]

I can't weight it up Pene, they were all still in foliage, I just needed the space.

[Penellype]

I think its likely to be a case of the ones that were stressed due to lack of water making potatoes early in order to survive when the parent plant died, a bit like very stressed plants will run to seed early. If you think about it from the evolution point of view, the ones that made maximum effort to reproduce when stressed probably ensured the survival of their genes, while those which carried on growing normally regardless didn't.