Topic: spuds again

[ACE]

I grew first early, second early, main crop and some salad type potatoes. Now I cannot remember the types and the bags they came in are faded out but I certainly purchased waxy types. The first crop was as described, the second which I started yesterday were big and floury, so just in case I was digging the right crop I dug some from the main crop they were even more floury. The salad spuds grown in the next row were nice yellow and waxy. Now I know the types of soil can alter the dynamics but surely not turning them all starchy. I am going to buy sealed bagged up potatoes next year instead of the fill your own bags I got this year. I have my doubts now that the labels in the shop might have been in the wrong hoppers.

[hippydave]

Easily miss marked by the shops as they dont care if they're right, they only want to sell them and by the time you notice its far too late to go back and complain.

[Borderers1951]

If you can find one, go to a small hardware shop which sells the seed potatoes singly.  The choice of variety may be more limited than it is in a garden centre but the tubers are usually easily identifiable and if you want 24, pick out 24.  There's a little shop in a nearby town which sells both potatoes and onions like that.  My fellow plot-holders all buy their spuds and onions there and they get exactly what they plant.  You'll need to segregate any chitting tubers and mark the beds properly, or at least mark any paper plan  accurately, of course.

[ACE]

Yes that is what I done, picked my own seed from the marked hoppers after reading what sort, taste and texture they were supposed to have. Planted in rows from the top of the bed first earlys, second, and main, plus an extra half row of salad nearby. I only doubted my planting when the potatoes turned out starchy when they were all supposed to be waxy. They were all planted two weeks apart so there was no need for me to get them mixed up. The halms on the seconds and main crop are even dying down at the same rate. I would expect the main to still be greener, but only  having two out of the four varieties being as described I am 99% sure they were labelled wrong in the shop. Next year it will be Mole valley who have their seed in sealed bags. I am not worried about choice or variety, just the texture. At least that way they will have only been through a couple of hands and not unpacked by somebody on work experience who is  doing their best but hasn't got a clue.

[laurieuk]

The soil and weather can completely can the taste and conditions of a potato crop. I grew Rooster last year and it was really good , this year having been a dry season they are very difficult to cook and have a different taste to them . I know in the past when others have been very successful with a certain variety they have been poor in mine.

[johhnyco15]

i grow all my spuds in tubs plant them all at the same time dont label any its a lucky dip turn out a tub it could be one variety of 5  - 30 tubs so its a one in 6 chance of getting the right one i love it spud roulette

[Duke Ellington]

I do the same as Johnny. I sow mine in 30 litre tubs I do label them. I buy my seed potatoes in sealed packets from the garden centre as I don't need that many. This is the second year of growing them this way and it's been a great success. Lovely clean potatoes and some of them huge. We empty a container when we need some and leave the rest. Some allotment holders on our site criticise this way of growing but it suits us. We will eventually empty them all and store 👍🏻👍🏻.

[squeezyjohn]

I'm making the switch over to tubs next year now I have enough of them for a whole crop.  I experimented with this way for a few this year ... although they got very droughted they've still done OK (Inca Bella).  My main reason is simply that I'm fed up with weeding out tons of volunteer potato plants every year ... at least this way they stay in the pots!

I've taken to planting all of mine together as early as I can get away with regardless of type (1st early, maincrop etc.) - I've also taken to harvesting all of mine around this time of the summer and storing them properly because otherwise I get blight and the slugs/ants make so many holes in them that they are too damaged to store for winter.  It doesn't seem to make much difference to size and any tiny ones can be eaten quickly as new potatoes.

This year a lot of my storing potatoes were Kestrel and Ratte (salad) ... these have yellowed and keeled over a few weeks ago - I've already dug up the kestrels which are huge and like baking potatoes.  Sarpo Mira are still green as anything and seem to want to carry on - but a furtle revealed a potato the size of a small sheep's head so I figure I could harvest those soon if I wanted to - but they'll probably keep going.

As for floury/waxy ... the variety helps and salad varieties rarely end up really floury.  But it's got a huge amount to do with the weather - and I've given up trying to predict this - it seems as if the weirder the weather gets the flourier the potatoes get!

[peanuts]

Never thought about growing pots in pots.  Would certainly avoid the problem we have round here of mole crickets eating the potatoes. Don't fancy the watering though!

One variety that  has never ever been floury, and i've grown them for many years, in different soils, is pink Fir Apple.  They make an excellent early potato, and are still firm and waxy the following winter.

I've found a way of cooking potatoes that works for me (I don't steam or  microwave them, although others recommend that): Having cut them to approximately the same fairly small size, I put them in salted boiling water with sprigs of mint.  I let them simmer for 3-4 mins maximum.  Then turn off the heat.  Leave them for a few minutes more, test them, then drain  once just cooked enough. 

[ancellsfarmer]

Ace, its not the shop staff that mix them up, its the customers. Pick'n mix is what they call it. Pick one up, look at it, spot another thats bigger,better, more sexy shape, whatever; and then reject the first selected, without a care as to where it ends up. They then go to the seedracks, look at cucumbers, read, decide they really want cornflowers
 and stuff the cucumber packet in any available hole. Just stand back and watch.
As a now retired shopkeeper, I have.

[squeezyjohn]

Never thought about growing pots in pots.  Would certainly avoid the problem we have round here of mole crickets eating the potatoes. Don't fancy the watering though!

If there are plenty of decent sized holes in the bottom of the tubs and you bury the bottom couple of inches of the tubs in the soil then the potato plants will put out roots through the holes and the plants can access the ground water just as if you put them directly in the ground.  If you start with the tubs only ⅓ full then you can earth up as the plants grow within the tubs.  Tubers will only ever grow within the tubs with this arrangement as they actually don't form on the roots.  I think it seems like a great system as you can target fertilizer directly at the plants ... and if they did need watering in a drought, again, it's much more targeted.  It's also possible to do this method with no-dig raised beds which are notoriously difficult to use with potatoes.

[peanuts]

Thank you squeezyjohn, that's a really helpful reply