Topic: Late harvest potato's!!

[JerryB]

Was very taken with the prospect of late harvest new potato's from the DT Brown website - naturally forgot to order them and now they have run out of stock! :-X Anyone has any ideas at all where i can get some from i would be very grateful!!!! Cheers, Jerry.

[tim]

The 'late' pots are new pots kept in cold storage. Like Carlingford. Last orders, end July.
You could try a few earlies that you still have in the ground - but I doubt it! = Tim

[fred]

Try gonegardening.com

I recieved mine this week and will plant when I can dig a ditch without it filling with water

Fred

[tim]

A bit late - sold out! = Tim

[Garden Manager]

Is it possible to 'do it yourself' with late cropping potatoes?

This was mentioned on GW last week, how you could save a few early/maincrop spuds as seed potatoes then plant them up and get a crop for christmas. Wasnt explained how to do it though.

Surely if you could readily get your own potatoes to sprout and grow so quickly, what to stop them doing it accidentaly either in the ground or in storage?

Sounded  a bit too good to be true if you ask me.

[philcooper]

I left some Lady Christl in the ground to use for a display and discovered that some had started to sprout

Phil

[plot51A]

In one of my books it says you can keep some seed pots from the beginning of the year in the fridge to plant now. A thought for next year - not that there would be enough room in my fridge!  ;D

[JerryB]

ARE YOU ALL MAD!!!! LEAVE NEW POTATOS IN THE GROUND!!! The scummiest crop of the year!!!! Unfortuanately i cannot take that advice as my 3 x 13' rows were gone in 3 weeks from the first picking!!!! Taste too good to leave lying around!!!

Thanks for your suggestions though - think the only way forward is to a) plan ahead and order for next year and b) look for whatever early varieties Mr Safeway or whatever may still have on the shelves and try and quickly sprout a few for planting! Unless i strike it lucky with a nursery or ebay!

Thanks again though!! ;D

JB

[tina]

I tried this last year, a coughed up quite a lot of dosh for the specially treated spuds.

Unfortunately the frost got every last one of them, despite putting straw over the top etc. :'( :'( :'(

However, this year I had three rows of spuds appear in the tomato patch  :o  :o   :o

Won't bother again (but they did taste very nice!!).

It would probably work if you could plant them in a greenhouse, or somewhere very sheltered.

Tina.

[Joolieeee]

same story here as Tina - spent a little fortune, bell cloched them, fleeced them, put glass all around them, loved them lots but still the frost got to them.

planted shallots in the plot beginning of the year, but you couldn't see them come harvest time due to ALL of the potatoes going barmy.  Had a good crop, no damage at all, not many spuds per plant, but what we did get were great.

I'm not sure what more protection we could have given them in the allotment

Joolieeee

[Garden Manager]

It DOES seem a waste to leave spuds in the ground rather than digging them up and enjoying them. And it kind of messes up your crop rotation for next year too.

Buying extra seed at the start of the year and refridgerating them until needed is fine in theory, but you need a massive fridge to do it. Our is always choca-block, so cant even stratify seeds in there.

I tried specialy prepared seed from Marshalls last year, an dthey produced a good crop. However there wasnt much choice of varieties, and what we got wasnt very nice to eat, so a lot of the crop went to waste. I havent bothered again this year.

Just have to try and make the maincrop spuds (Desiree) last a bit longer i suppose. However this will be dificult as we are thoroughly enjoying them at the moment! Mmm!

[tim]

Must just pop in a hopeful note. Four years growing.

Choice limited? Of course - to the ones best suited for the treatment.  I've used Franceline, Carlingford & Maris Peer - 17 July - eat mid Sep on.
But also Cara - from the supermarket - 25 June - eat mid Sep.

Frost? It takes a lot of frost to get into the tubers, but I've dug them when they were frozen solid & they still cooked well.

Rotation? They can follow on from the earlies.

All the above tasted great. = Tim

[derbex]

Mine, some saved up Red Duke of York, got the lurgi.

That plot is (hopefully) grazing rye now.

Jeremy

[Joolieeee]

obviously as ours came back to life this year as my above message, the tubers in the ground were eventually fine, but the frost got the green foilage above the surface

still tasted nice, even though we had an extra 8 months wait!

Joolieeee

[mysticmog]

I got mine from Thompson and Morgan, and they're just coming up now...they had some 2 weeks ago when I checked for a friend...but not many...

Good luck

 ;)

[derbex]

I probably ought to add that although mine were saved they weren't in the fridge -I just kept chitting them. Eventually I put them into pots as the bed wasn't ready when expected, this far it worked and we did have baby new potatoes in the pots. The problem came at planting out time.

Jeremy