Tatie bags Q

[bobbin]

I'm unsure what the ideal size of potato bags to buy. Also which are best. I've.
bought some from Wilko £2 for 2. Has anyone used them before. Can you also tell me what compost you used in the bags. ...blimey it's a minefield all this..maybe easier to hot foot it to Sainsburys...veg counter!

[Nicos]

Never used bags myself, but I'm sure they won't be fussed

Nah....off the shelf are never as nice as growing your own....and you'd be doing yourself out of the excitement of the waiting for the first leaves, the first frost, the next lot of first leaves , the first furtle trying to find your first homegrown baby tattie, weighing your crop , watching them cook in anticipation of eating the first crop and finally , the long awaited first taste ( always even more mouthwatering rolled in butter in my opinion )

What variety are you going to plant?

[bobbin]

What's a furtle Nicos? Is it a small allotment furry animal or me hunting for spuds? I tried growing them in old compost bags last year. Awful as the bags were not rigid and collapsed all over the place. Dried out too. That could be as I sieved most of the soil I put in them......no I don't know why I did a really stupid thing like that either!! Lousy crop resulted. This year will be a success! (Say that every year and you start to believe it)

[bobbin]

Re variety Nicos ,I've got Nicola Charlotte and some Red Duke. I want another but not sure what. (I know main crop are a bit of a waste of time and always get scabby and hole ridden but I can't resist the challenge. ) I've grown Rocket,Swift,Anya in the past. It's a worry when spuds make you this excited...think I need help!

[Jimmy]

Some years ago someone bought me some spud bags for Christmas.
If you don't make your own compost then they cost an absolute fortune to fill.
Must cost 10 times more that a bag of spuds from the Green Grocer.
Jimmy

[Cadalot]

I fill my buckets with a mixture of Verve Compost, & Coir with a little potato fertiliser and coffee grounds added. The spent mixture gets spread over the beds at the end of the season. I'm hoping to get to the point where I make enough of my own compost so that I don't have to buy in too much in the future.

[bario1]

I'm experimenting this year with a few different 'fillings'. I filled some barrels with a foot of garden soil, then 6" of manure (bought), stick 3 spuds on the top of that, then fill the rest of the barrel (18") with a mix of 80% woodchip, 10% straw, 10% mpc. Dunno if it'll work, but it's cheap!

[Stan79]

I've grown in a few different types of bags in the past couple of years and there doesn't seem to be much difference in how well the spuds grow. Most important thing is the watering as the tubers form. As i was advised by someone on here, they need lots of water to form nice big spuds. I watered twice a day when the plants had developed nice strong top growth and fed them regularly when i thought the spuds were growing!

I just used left over compost from last year's empty pots in the bottom of the bag to bed the chitted spuds in and then as the spuds started to grow i slowly topped up with homemade compost. To my mind the seed potato provides the initial energy for growth and then as the plant starts to form it requires more and more energy hence topping up with better quality compost as it grows and then feeding regularly towards the end!

[bario1]

The way i see it, the plant gets it's nutrients from the roots which grow out of the seed potato - the haulms and tubers just need a medium to hold them and keep them out of the light, so there's no point in using expensive compost that would serve other plants better.

I'm probably mad wrong on that though!

[Stan79]

Yeah... don't use expensive compost but equally, any nutrients in the top layer are likely to get washed down to the bottom of the bag due to the watering!