Cara excellent yield

[alldigging]

Dug my cara up today. Tons of big spuds! Only planted 5 potatoes. Will try to remmeber to weigh the bag tomorrow.
Got a bucket full of golden wonder too.

Well impressed with cara though!

[rosiepumpkin]

I planted 6 and got less than I was expecting. They went in in June and harvested today. The soil is fertile going by the weeds and it was probably the soil having had nothing done to it for a few years, plus going in late. When did you plant your chits?

[Chris172]

Hi

third year growing potatoes on the plot and this year has been the best:

Charlotte 1st early brilliant and was still lifting them in August great taste cold with salad as they are waxy minimal slug damage

Rocket early also and had a great crop however again still lifting them in August and some were huge minimal slug damage taste great and the mash is amazing with a touch of garlic.

Maris Piper main crop 50% crop undamaged not happy however stored the good ones and now going through the damaged

Sarpo Mira red skinned main crop dissapointed with the size of pots and yeild however they taste great and roast really well.

Top of the table for me this year is Cara what a bumper crop and what i have stored hopefully will keep the family going for a good number of months beyond the new year.

Great crop huge tatties and really good bakers at the moment two a week for me bait at work and plenty tucked away

Cannot wait to try a few more next year however my staple crops Charlotte, Cara & Rocket will be on my list again

Happy gardening


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[Martin H]

My Cara were good this year too and I'll be growing them again next year. I put them second in my ranking list behind Charlotte, which were cleaner with only slightly lower yield at maturity.

Ratte were third, good clean crop but too fiddly.
Rooster were fourth, big yield but nearly 50% damaged.
Lady Christl were fifth, early and reasonable quality but very poor yield.
Maris Piper were sixth and last for me this year, huge yield but 90% damaged.

So Charlotte and Cara for me next year, plus one other variety for a try-out.

[Aberdeenplotter]

Cara is a really nice spud but not suitable for every garden. If you have a slug problem at all, cara are slug magnets

[Chris172]

hi

my Cara were in the bed next to my Maris Pipers and there was no way near the slug damage to them as the Pipers which i was very dissapointed with however i will continue to battle against the slugs and grow on and introduce new varieties

Happy gardening


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[alldigging]

Cara is a really nice spud but not suitable for every garden. If you have a slug problem at all, cara are slug magnets

No slug damage on mine at all. Lots on other potatoes. Must be luck!

[Rob the Radish]

I missed my spuds this year but am planning a good few varieties next year, how do you all store your spuds as I think I may have ordered quite a few more than I can deal with

[Martin H]

The hardest thing is keeping them cool enough.

The easier (but important) part is making sure they are nicely dried out before packing them away in something that the air can get to them. I wash them out, put aside any holey ones for immediate use, dry them out on my garden table and then store in hessian sacks / bags.

These go in my shed which is in the shadiest corner of the garden, I'll let you know how they got on next spring!

The old fashioned way is to store them outdoors in a clamp. Lots of instructions on line, but basically packed in straw and covered in soil. I've tried this in the past and it worked reasonably well; it's just less convenient than having them in bags.

[PamK]

I only started to grow veg this year so I have missed out on planting spuds but looking forward to growing them next year

[skeggijon]

I don't really bother growing many spuds - seems like a waste of space, when surrounded by farms selling them for virtually nothing most of the year.

I tend to use the space to grow things that are either expensive to buy, hard to get hold of in the shops, or just taste better homegrown. Apart from new pots straight out of the ground I never really notice any difference in taste by growing my own tatties.