Topic: whats happened to my spuds???

[deewillow]

Hi, I'm a new member of the forum and hope that someone can answer a potato question......
I planted Winston first early variety on 25th march, after chitting. They've grown well (although not as high as many other peoples) and I've kept them earthed up. But I've had no flowers at all.....meanwhile lots of other peoples on the allotment are blooming. No sign of any foliage being yellow or dying.
So being a bit curious this evening I decided to have a little rummage to see if there were any pots lurking. I had to dig quite a long way down and then to my shock I found 5 HUGE potatos, the size of baking spuds. Average size was 350grams, measuring 5" long and 10" round!!! This wasn't the whole yield of this one plant either - but I decided to stop digging!

whats happened to the little new potatos I was expecting? should I now dig everything up? have they been in too long?
I'm still in shock, I have about 50 of these plants and if they are all like this thats a lot of spuds. Any advice would be much appreciated

[asbean]

 ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

Hope you like potatoes

[asbean]

They are first earlies, here's the description (hence no flowers):

http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_veg_diary/fruit_veg_mini_project_november_1_potato_winston.htm

Maybe they matured earlier than you expected.  They say they are large ones - normally if you leave them in longer, they tend to bulk up.  First earlies need to be small - for salads etc.

[watkin girl]

in morrisons they are selling winston potatoes as a  baking variety big spuds, so maybe they were ready alot earlier then you expected. nothing wrong with they though.

[cornykev]

I dug up some big ones to Dee not as big as your ones, my biggest was 300 grams.  ;D ;D ;D ;D ;D

[Chris Graham]

Oh I'm going to go take a look at mine!!!  Estima variety BTW

[frogdoctor]

Dee take a few pics of your pots and post then on here, Lets have a look :o

[saddad]

Many early varieties are know for getting overlarge if left... sometimes they go hollow in the middle...
 :-\

[deewillow]

thanks for the replies......we ate the ones dug up so far today and they certainly tasted scrummy. Also made a load of potato and chive salad...I'll dig some more up tomorrow and get some pics of them! Better start finding plenty of recipes. I am presuming that these really need to all come out of the ground now? could they hang on over a the next week or so though?

[saddad]

well naturally they would.... if you aren't getting any hollow ones I would...
 ;D

[daisymay]

some of our arran pilot are baking spud size... really vary though most are new potato size.. guess it is all the wet weather!

[Zippy Seale]

Heres my second earlies...Kestrel.

The one in the corners avg weight of 300 +
Largest of this crop was 357 grams
I gave them a light scrub and then brush them with olive oil and rolled them in spiced bread crumbs and baked them,  lovely

I have had about 20 kgs of first earlies and about same of kestrel, with 10 of edzell blue.  I have around 6 lines of kestrel to go still!
around 10 plants a line