Planting spuds now for xmas

[Alison]

I'll be very interested to hear how anyone planting spuds late (late August or September) gets on. They're no point me whinging about it being a bad idea, in future years, if folk have success

I've done it in the past but the yields are pretty small for the effort involved. I prefer to just use PFA for Christmas dinner which I can rely on without dodging frosts. Probably better results further south but not round here.

[Kristen]

I've done it in the past but the yields are pretty small for the effort involved

Just double checking: are you referring to a September "planting"?

I've "planted" in 1st week of August, in bags, and had a similar size crop to bags planted in the Spring ...

Maybe next year I should do a couple of bags in August and two more in September and see how they compare ... I was assuming crop-failure if planted late, which is clearly daft, low/lower-yield is much more likely, as you quite rightly point out

I prefer to just use PFA for Christmas dinner which I can rely on without dodging frosts

Snap

We actually thought that having our own New Potatoes at Crimbles was a bit weird, Roasties being more "normal". Can't speak for the rest of my family, who are more lax on the matter, but my rule counts on this point mostly, which is that we don't eat out-of-season. I eat Runners in Summer and Leeks in Winter ... and there is hell to pay about the food-miles of Asparagus bought in late Summer (its tasteless anyway, plus I resent how expensive it is at that time ...). I digress!!

We find that PFA is one of the better storing spuds, keeping firm well into the winter, and it is our preferred spud anyway - staying firm after cooking. Our side-by-side trial with Anya this year failed on that exact point, as the Anya was pappy.

[Alison]

Just double checking: are you referring to a September "planting"?

Probably mid to late August in pots / bags which were moved into the greenhouse before the frosts.

[Two_Sheds]

Check availability with Iian at JBA seed potatoes

It's not going to work because:

- Xmas spuds are rarer than rocking horse poo
- he's a month too late planting them

Some people will want to have a go anyway (and yes, I was one of those people myself), in which case just plant a supermarket potato