I only had nine second earlies seed potaotes and due to the amount of family bbq's we had they went in no time, i've got loads of maincrop, can i pull any up now to eat as news or do i have to wait until the foilage dies etc?
Dig into the mound with your fingers to see if there are any of decent size and remove potatoes without disturbing things too much. Any you don't take will continue to develop. I think you will need to make sure there are no signs of blight on the plants as you do not want the virus - which may have dropped spores onto the soils surface, to get down to the developing potatoes.
thanks redclannger but i dont actually know what blight looks like, this is my first year of growing potatoes. My second earlies were ok!
Do a site search for blight in pests and disorders. Some photos of blight were posted not so olong ago. You could also try a Google.
Little gem I had a peek at mine and they looked good size and healthy so I ate just those off the first plant I'd checked. I had a load of early ones to eat so left the maincrrop alone. By the time they've all gone my main crops will be ready. If you've got no taters left I'd have a gleg as if they're ready you might as well be eating them instead of the slugs :)
Go for it Littlegem, you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Lifted my maincrop today (Romano) as the dreaded blight has struck, but got a lovely yield even though I'd have preferred to leave them longer.
went for it tonight, pulled up a couple, they ended up being reds (never label anything!!!) and i scrubbed them and cooked them in their skins and added lashing of butter, skins broke like when you're in ireland and you cant peel and boil potatoes cos they go to mush, but you eat skin and all, even though its a bit tougher than news (in a nice way) absolutely delicious!!! Note to one self - keep on not labelling and wait for the surprises!!! yummy
Quote from: periwinkle on August 10, 2005, 21:44:08
Go for it Littlegem, you've got nothing to lose and everything to gain. Lifted my maincrop today (Romano) as the dreaded blight has struck, but got a lovely yield even though I'd have preferred to leave them longer.
The advice regarding blight is to cut down and dispose of (by burning) the foliage. The potatoes should then be left in the ground for two weeks for the skins to harden.