Topic: Potatoes - confused

[Gordonmull]

Hi folks

Hoping someone can shed some light on this.

I have planted 15 x Maris Bard and 15 x Nicola potatoes. First and second earlies, respectively, as I understood.

Nicola is romping on, all have buds and the first flower opened today. Bard are just showing the tiniest little flower buds on some plants.

Bard were sown 11/03/12 and Nicola 18/03/12. Why are my second earlies beating my first earlies? It's pickling my head.

Also, I seem to find conflicting advice on when to start lifting earlies. Some say when the flowers open, some one week after the flowers open, others two weeks. When people say "When the flowers open" to they mean all of them, the first one, wait till they all open on every plant?

Over complicating things as usual probably but I'm a very confused potato grower!!!! What do A4A people do?

Cheers

Gord

[RenishawPhil]

i never wait until the flowers open as sometimes they are a bit big by the, so tend to go when you can see flower heads developing

Just try a plant when you feel like and see how they are

My earliers and second earlies are fab this year

mains are very slow and weedy

[manicscousers]

Our seconds and main are very far advanced and the earlies are only just ready outside. Some of the earlies don't even flower, just to add to the confusion.
As notts-phil says, have a look underneath, you might be pleasantly surprised  ;D

[digmore]

hi Gordon

depending on when you planted your earlies, they may have been held back by ground temp or frost damage even b4 breaking thru.

we scrapped ours and started again, they have grown well but the proof will be in the lifting.

try lifting one plant from the middle of the row to get a true size.

good luck

Digmore

[Gordonmull]

Hmmm. Some food for thought there! Cheers!

I'm on clay so furtling is a bit difficult. I had a try a few weeks ago and found only little tiny white tubers on the maris bard. A brief rummage at the bottom of the ridge on the Nicola a few days ago saw me snapping off one of the same. Would it be an idea to go in with the fork on the one that's flowering and if it's still not ready will it suffer being put back in place?

Also, how deep should I be looking?

First attempt at growing potatoes (anyone guess that?  ;D ) so a bit clueless here.

[chriscross1966]

POtatoes can be odd things sometimes... some varieties like some soil, some don't, some don't seem to care.... It looks like Nicola like your soil and the Maris Bard don't.... have an ask round the site and see what others are growing and doing well with.... TBH Bard isn't the best first early anyway, and in my experience I feel it falls into the same group as Pentland Javelin in being a sort of 1 and a half early.... .... maybe try something else next year... in the meantime... dig a root form the middle of the row, I doubt whether you'll get to replant, but if it's been in there for 14 weeks then it ought to have set plenty by now, if it hasn't strike it off the list for next year...

You will see a lot of lists folks put up of spuds I know I'm a serial offender, if you have a potato day  near you next year and you haven't got any decent information to go on then I'd looks at doing five of each of three varieties...a word of warning though, some of the "modern" ones, although insanely quick are intended for growing under cover.. Swift and Rocket do really live up to their names if grown in a tunnel or GH, but aren't the most flavoursome...

[shirlton]

We have been eating our nadine. True its a second early but it is so delicious that we have decided not to grow earlies and just use this variety.

[manicscousers]

Our first early was vanessa, under cover and lady chrystl outside, The vanessa are a definite next year, lovely taste and very early  :)

[galina]

Belle de Fontenay are ready for a 'firkle and replant'.  We had some delicious new potatoes.

All seem a bit late this year.  Normally by the end of June we start harvesting seriously, not just firkling.  The foliage looks tremendous and Blue Danube, Charlotte (I think they are they Charlottes) and Mayan Gold and M Twilight are flowering beautifully.  I have never seen flowers on Charlotte (pinkish white) in the past.

[antipodes]

Yes spuds this year are strange!
I have Belle de Fontenay earlies, the taste is really exceptional. Although a lot of people here grow Amandine earlies and they too are good. We have been eating the earlies for a month already! first time that has ever happened to me!
They did not flower - not all earlies flower so be aware of that.
For seconds I planted Claustar, some newfangled variety. Well, they are already starting to be ready! I dug up one this week and there were several quite large spuds already ready! So I dunno how we are going to eat all this! 
I then have PinkFir Apple which will be ready much later and some vitelotte purples which are also meant to be lates but they are well in flower! 
You can always get a spade well down, lift and if the spuds you see are not to your satisfaction, just pull out the spade and earth it back over. As long as you've not pulled the spuds from the plant they are usually quite forgiving.

[Toshofthe Wuffingas]

My earlies are Foremost (an old favourite) and Casablanca, a trial run of something I hadnt tried before. Foremost has been in flower for weeks, Casablanca just coming into flower now. I've started lifting both of them and Foremost is bigger. I doubt I'll grow Casablanca next year.
Charlotte has been in flower for at least a week already. I got my allotment this Spring at short notice so didn't have time to acquire the varieties I might have liked.

 By the way I grow potatoes by the long shoot method. I chit them in a dark cardboard box to get long spindly shoots then lay them (carefully!!)  flat in the trench. The foliage comes up from the nodes and is more evenly spread out and you can plant them out later.

[Gordonmull]

Well, I've been out and had a wee look. I dug some Bard from the middle and was pleasantly surprised to find one 3" potato and another 2" potato. I dug five plants and got about 700g yield - that doesn't seem like much to me. The potatoes varied in size from 3" to marble-sized, with most being the latter. Probably about 2 or 3 decent sized potatoes per plant.

Not doing Maris Bard next year, then.

I haven't touched the Nicola yet. I'll save that for when we've scoffed today's lot plus the reduced bags of lady chrystl we picked up in assda.

[cornykev]

I'm just halfway through a line of Earlies, RDOY down, Foremost to go.   ;D

[darren2007]

just dug up some of my first Early's today they where decent size but had a lot of slug damage some pots where half eaten never had so much damage before

[Digeroo]

Now I am properly confused.    None  of my earlies have much in the way of flowers, and the annabelle described as compact was sown late and romped away and are huge.  So it is Mayan Gold leading on the flower front.  I have been digging my volunteers and had a nice meal of small shetland black yesterday which were too close to my courgettes.

Well many thanks for this thread just  been down to lottie and dug up two rocket plants and got a good number of spuds.  Perfect size, bit scabby, will try probably not grow rocket again.  One had black leg (?) and all the spuds were very scabby, other one healthy and spuds were bigger,  total yield about 1kg.

[Poolcue]

Pulled up a plant of Pentland Javelin today and got 6 good sized blemish free spuds.