Potato Harvesting - What stage are you at then?

[Garden Manager]

I can quite proudly announce that that here we are begining of september and are only just getting to the end of our crop of first earlies, and havent begun to dig the maincrop yet.

Ok so there are only 3 of us eating them and we dont eat them every night, but from 15 plants grow in a raised bed and planted about 1 foot (30cm) apart has given nearly 10 weeks of cropping, since every plant cropped heavily.

This is in contrast to last year when for various reasons the earlies produced a poor crop and we had to rely mostly on supermarket spuds and the maincrop.

I attribute this successon several factors: Well dug and improved soil; increased spacing between plants: 'Leaky hose' irrigation and no hosepipe ban; and finaly earthing up rather than a no-dig/mulching method i have used in the past.

Now though there is only a couple more meals to be had left, so will begin diging the maincrop soon. As these were given almost the exact same treatment as the earlies, I expect the crop to last until christmas!

That said though after watching last nights gardeners world, and seeing the results of the 'chitting' trial they did, i am starting to wonder. The trial showed that earlies that were chitted and maincrops that were unchitted cropped the best. Both of mine were chitted so we shall see. Unfortunately it couldnt be any other way. Both lots of seed potatoes were bought at the same time so it would have been hard to chit one lot and not the other!

We shall see..... ???

[Garden Manager]

[Marymary]

Sounds like a good crop GC.  What varieties did you grow? 

[calendula]

finished the first earlies and more or less the second earlies and now on to the early maincrop and all the main crop still to look forward to but I usually harvest them all in one go for storage - it's been good for spuds but they did need a lot of water during the hot period - thinking about next year's choices already  :)

[Garden Manager]

I grew Rocket as a first early and Maris Piper as maincrop. I have grown Rocket for the first time - ironicaly to get an extra early crop! But because of the cold spring planting was held up.  I have been very pleased with the way this variety has ben for cooking and eating.

[Mrs Ava]

Have 3 sack fulls in the shed of volunteers so they were alsorts of different spuds, alsorts of different shapes and sizes.  Have a sacks full of lady christl and others - can't remember what they are of the top of my head - would have to check my blog - and still have 4 rows on the plot - pfa, orla, edzel blue and um.....er....I think it might be more lady christl.  Last years spuds were great, but we finished the last of the pfa by mid spring or so - this year I am hoping to have proper spuds right through until we start the first earlies again.  Considering how dry it has been, we have done amazingly well for spuds on our allotment - I am thrilled!

[Meg]

good potato crop. I had rocket as my first earlies and gave loads away. Maris Peer as second still have loads but have nearly dug them all up. Had oHH forgotten the maincrop but am going to do dig them up when I can as the oldtimers have dug all theirs up. They are lovely red ones........

[Larkspur]

Eaten all of ours ::), except for two roots of pink fir apple. Didn't have that many plants to start with nor did they yield particularly well but boy were they tasty :) especially the Belle de Fontenay which I highly recommend.

[Garden Manager]

I think the other advantage mine had this year was each variety had a raised bed all to itself rathe than only having half of one (shared with the other variety), as in past years. Consequently i could give them more space to grow. i only did this because i had a bed spare (that I didnt have last year) thanks to a rejig of the plot. I have still to plan out the plot for next year but I dont expect to have so much space next year (expansion of a new crop only tried out this year), so it will be back to the potatoes all sharing one bed to make space for new crops.

What i am thinking of doing is reducing the number of potato plants in the hope that fewer plants given more space will give a better yeild than lots of plants crammed in. For example in past years i have grown 15 plants in a 1x1.75m  bed. This year I grew the same number in nearly double the space (30cm spacing). So i reckon that if i cut the number of plants to 10 in a 1x 1.75m bed then i can get nearly the same spacing, and get a decent crop. This will then enable me to return to 1 bed for all the potatoes rather than 2.

I hope this makes sense :-\

[theothermarg]

70% of my 1st and 2nd early.s have been eaten unfortunatly by slugs

[sandersj89]

Half a row of Mimi in the ground still, first early. Eaten all the foremost first early already.

Lifted and stored Kestral and Marfona, second earlies. A sack of each.

Half of the Aran Victory lifted, a late main crop. Should be 2 sacks worth.

Finally a row of Ratte to lift, late main crop, should be half a sack or so as they are a small spud but have cooked very well.

Would have lifted them all at the weekend but the ground was too wet.

Very little slug damage this year as I have been watering with coffee solution every 3 weeks or so!

;D

Jerry

[Squashfan]

We've got a burlap bag and a half full of tatties, removed them all to make space for the winter crops. I agree, Larkspur, Belle de Fontenay were lovely. Also grew Ulster Chieftan as very earlies, Romanos are nice red roasting ones (and we got a few monsters out of those!), King Edward and a couple more I can't remember. I'd probably go with fewer next year of more varieties. My big problem is we've chucked them all into the bags and now have to hunt through to get some of the same type!  ::)

[tim]

Colleen long gone. Milva (what a potato!!) just finished, so we've had to break into the Cara.

6' haulms, completely entangled. Only 5lb per plant & slugs just starting. But the flowers are no way finished yet!

[keef]

Arran Pilot - all dug up and all eaten, very poor crop - they all died off in June.

Cherie - all dug up 50% eaten, good crop - very good flavour and texture.

Desiree - 50% dug up and only a few eaten, not very good so far - plenty of spuds but no where near as big as other years.

Cara - all dug up and some eaten, good crop - much larger spuds then the desiree - maybe not as many as last year though. Very little slug damage - but i did apply Nemaslug once this year for a trial, and dug them up before the tops had completely died to get a head start over the slugs..

Hopefully the rest of the Desiree will be better, or i dont think i'll have enough to last till next year  :-\  Dug the first half about a month ago as the tops died off early. The remaining ones we planted at the same time but in a different part of my plot, the tops have only just died off.

[Robert_Brenchley]

My Charlotte are flowering like mad again. I'll be treating them as a maincrop this year.

[ThomsonAS]

I am envious.

I'm coming to the end of the earlies - but the majority never got beyond ping-pong ball size and a few got hit by scab.

Main crop 'fruited' as well as flowered and the foliage remains  vigorous - I'm keen to get the  crop out but am trying to be disciplined!

[Garden Manager]

Virtualy finished eating the earlies so have now dug 3 plants of my maincrop (Maris Piper). Smashing yeild of between 1.5 and 2kg per plant (so wont be in a rush to dig them all up just yet!). Good quality too, hardly a blemish or trace of scab (which did affect the earlies), and generaly a good size too.

The top growth of themaris piper was very vigorous too, it has only recently started to die off. In fact the haulms were so tall and upright they provided (for a time) an excellent backdrop for a nearbly flower border!

[stuffed]

Only got 1 bucket left  :'( :'(
I had quite few but have only been eating them with salads as they don't tend to get v.big in the buckets.
I have been happiest with the king edwards, I know they are maincrop but I like them better dug up a bit early.  They were nicer than the earlies I grew (can't remember the name now).  They produced more spuds per bucket than the other types I grew as well.

[Melbourne12]

Still got about half in the ground, but rather poor results.  The early wet weather drowned some of them, and the drought then didn't help the survivors.  But mostly what we've got are tasty, and very little disease or slug damage.

We grew Vales Emerald, Adora, Smile, Harlequin, and Sarpo Axona.  Smile & Harlequin are the two I'd grow again, with reasonable yields, and delicious.

Adora came as a free offer from T&M, and are so-called low calories spuds.  Waste of effort and lottie space, IMO.  Very low yield, and indifferent taste.