2015 potato harvests

[bramble]

No matter about the size Nanny Sally, its how they taste is all that matters. ☺

[Penellype]

Harvested 2 buckets of Desiree today - these were ones which died down rather early and I wasn't expecting a lot. 3 seed potatoes in each 30 litre bucket:



1.0kg on the left and 1.15kg on the right.

I have no idea why these buckets produced only around 1kg each. There were 3 30 litre buckets on a west facing raised bed with a fence behind, producing 1.05kg, 1.0kg and 1.15kg respectively. Another 3 buckets were put on a raised bed facing north with a brick wall behind and the foliage stayed green much longer. The first of these was harvested just over a week ago and produced 2.4kg. Same seed potatoes, same compost (recycled/home made, vermiculite and bfb). At the start of the season my money would have been on the west facing ones producing a heavier crop, which just shows how much I know! I'll be harvesting the remaining 2 buckets from the north facing bed when the last bits of green foliage die off, and I'll be very disappointed if they don't produce 2kg+ each.

[Dorothy rouse]

Very pleased with my 'Charlottes' in bags, good size and good flavour, one more bag to go.

Haven't even looked at my main crop, they've disappeared under weeds! Hope there are some there when I do dig them up!

[Potstubsdustbins]

Whoops,

Harvested a bin of Lady C today, having read on here how folks leave their spuds in the ground until needed I had done the same. These first early spuds are the ones I would normally leave in for 16 to 18 weeks to get some bakers, this bin had been down for 24 weeks and look what I found amongst them.

Must have got fed up waiting to be lifted and decided to start again.

[muddled]

Excellent crop of pink fir apple....large plastic garden trug bucket full.
There were some slug damaged ones but not too many. My poor lottie neighbour lost her entire maincrop (vivaldi) to the slugs. She's gutted.

The Lady charlottes earlier in the year were also very good, I think these two will be my regular choice from now on as the slugs on our site really seem to hate them.

Just need to choose a good baker for next year....

[Potstubsdustbins]

That's the last of the main crop lifted and in store. All in all a very good year for spuds with little damage and good harvests, it will be some months before SWMBO has to buy from a shop.

Just ordered next seasons seed for delivery in Jan and by March will be looking forward to the first early spuds.

[Penellype]

One 30 litre bucket of Sarpo Axona. These were bought as an afterthought in early May and planted on 9th, considerably later than my other maincrops. Grown in a dark corner under the leylandii hedge for most of their life, so quite happy with 1.25kg of potatoes from 3 seed potatoes.

[Penellype]

Remembered I had a 30 litre bucket of Charlotte lurking in the garage and I thought I had better harvest them after Potty's experience with Lady C! 1.3kg from 2 seed potatoes grown in similarly dark conditions to the Sarpo Axona. Charlotte has been a real star this year.

[rosiepumpkin]

I grew my Charlottes under the Leylandii hedge. I'm so pleased something grows! Not near as much crop as you, but it was dry this year and I didn't water or feed, so not bad really.

[Snow]

874g sarpo mira, my last crop. About a third was scab rotten, no good to eat. This came from a very large pot and the plant had barely put out any roots into the bottom. No idea why, and a surprise as the plant was vigorous and healthy - the strongest I grew this year and I had expected big things. A real dissapointment. Not worth taking photos of.

Well, that's this year's potato experiment over for me. I enjoyed doing it and seeing how everyone else has got on. I'll write up my findings at some point soon. Perhaps a few of you have a few more to dig up yet?

[Penellype]

I have 2 buckets of Desiree in the garage and a bucket and a water butt of Sarpo Mira. Also 2 buckets of Christmas Charlotte, if they manage to keep clear of blight.

[Penellype]

Harvested the Sarpo Mira from the water butt today:



4.1kg (9lb) from 5 seed potatoes, including 3 enormous ones. Very happy with these grown against a north facing wall.

As some of the foliage was still green, I planted it with as much root as possible attached into a bucket of compost that had grown a courgette. I have no idea if anything will grow form this but nothing lost by trying.

[dammad49]

Roosters from chits

These Roosters were grown from chits. Back in May I bought a 2Kg bag of a well known brand of rooster spuds out of the reduced bin at our local Coop for about 40p, it was close to closing time. They were chitting so I decided to do this year's spud experiment with them.
Cut out chits to a depth of about 1/4" and put aside to dry for 48 hrs. Made chips with the rest.
Pushed dry chits lightly into the surface of damp seed compost and put in shade in GH. When roots developed (within 2 weeks) carefully potted into APC in 3" pots. Once roots showed at bottom of pots transferred to 5 old recycling tubs in various compost mixtures, grew on as normal - earthing up etc.
Harvested yesterday, cleanest roosters I've ever seen, made chips with the big ones, using the double fry method (best chips I've ever tasted, and I've tasted a lot!).
The continuation of this experiment will be to pick out suitable seed spuds, wash carefully and air dry and store at the back of the fridge in a lightproof container until March/April and plant as normal. Made a note of which compost mix produced the biggest/most spuds.
I've had success with this method before with Charlottes, although some will no doubt say it's unethical, immoral or dangerous, it is a way of getting virtually free seed spuds. Particularly hard to get/expensive varieties

[Twinsane]

We did loads of spuds this year but our best crop came from an 8x4 bed of rogue picasso tubers that we'd missed last year. When they came up I left them alone as we weren't using the bed. There were 5 plants which were left to their own devices, not watered or fed and swamped with nettles, docks and tons of other weeds. Last week we dug them up. One plant produced one potato weighing 1.44kg/3.2lb and a total of 7.9kg/17.4lb!



In total the five plants (one of which hardly had anything) had 25.6kg/56.4lb of tatties. This photo shows most of them though there were still some left in the bucket when I took it.

[Snow]

We did loads of spuds this year but our best crop came from an 8x4 bed of rogue picasso tubers that we'd missed last year. When they came up I left them alone as we weren't using the bed. There were 5 plants which were left to their own devices, not watered or fed and swamped with nettles, docks and tons of other weeds. Last week we dug them up. One plant produced one potato weighing 1.44kg/3.2lb and a total of 7.9kg/17.4lb!

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In total the five plants (one of which hardly had anything) had 25.6kg/56.4lb of tatties. This photo shows most of them though there were still some left in the bucket when I took it.
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Look at the size of that spud!! Quality, well done!