Spuds flowering

[vegging out]

Hi all,I noticed today that two or three of my rocket earlies are flowering already,is this normal for this variety and is anybody else's spuds doing so?Thanks.. :)

[vegging out]

[ninnyscrops]

Can I jump in here too - first earlies Lady Chrystal no flowers - second earlies Majestic tons of buds  ???

[Uncle Joshua]

My first earlies are flowering too.

[ninnyscrops]

But my second earlies are flowering before my first earlies - confused as only ever grown first before  ???

[mc55]

noticed at the weekend that my rockets have flower buds too

[SGuy]

Hello everyone!

I'm a newbie to this forum and to growing veg.  We don't actually have an allotment but have put in a small plot in our garden and a few pots on the patio.  It's great to read the discussions and suggestions on the site, particularly helpful to me as a beginner to all of this. 

I'm so relieved to hear that other people have got flower buds on their potatoes too - I saw the buds on mine yesterday and was worried that they were flowering too soon.  My earlies are Maris Bard and I've also got some second earlies (Estima). 

[manicscousers]

welcome to the site, sguy, I think the early spring has brought everything on  :)

[SGuy]

Thanks   ;D

[GaryJS]

My rockets are flowering too! Infact, I just harvested nearly 12lb from a container grown one at home :) Should be nice at tea time! I carefully removed the pot, took off some of the bigger spuds and then put the plants back in the pot and gave them a good water :) Hopefully I can keep doing that for a couple of weeks until the ones at my plot are ready :)

[pigeonseed]

that's so good - to have potatoes already. I know it must be possible, as they're on sale. But my plants aren't flowering yet - do you have to wait till they flower before you can eat the potatoes?

This is my first year for earlies. Normally i have pink fir apple and theyre really late. when can i eat them? I can't even remember what I planted, I know some arran pilot. apart from them I've forgotten.

[GaryJS]

I didn't wait for the ones at home to flower.
BTW.. They tasted great!

[pigeonseed]

did you just have a look to see if they were big enough and then dig them up?

[GaryJS]

Pretty much. I have them in a container so I tipped the container out (after watering so that the compost held firm) and picked off the biggest ones from around the edge (+ a couple from inside). When I had done that I simply put the whole lot back in the container, watered again to bed it back in and now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that all those tiny bean sized ones I saw get to be a bit bigger!

[Jitterbug]

When early potatoes flower it means that you can start harvesting them - happy eating all.  My greenhouse ones have not yet started - I have checked.  So I'm afraid its only broad beans for me.

Jitterbug

[Teej]

We ate our first ever home-grown potatoes last night.  Red Duke of York -  absolutely delicious.  We even took a photo of them we were so proud!

Grew them in a bucket in the greenhouse & we've got another 5 buckets on the go too, (some more RDoY & some Charlotte) one in the greenhouse & the others outside.  I had the tiny baby ones with my salad at lunchtime - well, it was a shame for them to go to waste!

I did notice that they cooked extremely quickly so I don't know if that's the case with all home-grown or not.

Just can't wait for our next harvest now, but we're trying to ration ourselves. ;D

[miniroots]

My Red Duke of York have flower buds too!!

But I thought it would be too early to dig them up... maybe I'll try one at the weekend!!