Ok, I'm trying to plan my beds for the next year and I'm in need of some advise. :)
How many potato plants should i have? :-\
I have a family of 4 and ideally I'd like to grow enough for the year but the problem is, I've only got 1/2 a plot so space is at a premium.
+ do potatoes last a year?
Hi Pumpkin,
You will need to plant different potato types at different times of year in order to have a continuous supply. check out seed companies websites for what is available at each time of year.
You have Earlies, which as the name suggests are an early maturing variety - usually salad potato sizes. plant these (mid april) so that the green growth is popping up from May by which time, depending on where you are in the country, the frosts may have passed.
Then you have Maincrops which are planted from around end of April to end of May. These are your all rounders so I would plant lots of these (bargain on getting about 4 big potatoes and a couple of smaller ones per plant).
There are varieties which are said to be harvested during winter, but judging from previous threads on here people have had mixed sucess with these.
Maincrop potatoes do store well, you just have to follow some basic hygeine rules; keep them clean and dry and in a dark place. When you pull them from the ground on a dry day, let them lie in the sun for no more than one day so that the skins will set. this will help them to last longer in storage.
Unfortunately, if your plot is small and you eat a lot of potatoes then I think this may take up most of your plot! It's all well and good trying to be self sufficient but with the best will in the world I don't know if you could manage it on a half sized plot; the space you'd need for your different taties would take up a half plot at least on their own! Best to grow what you can and buy the rest from a supermarket!
Hope this helps, and if anyone spots any (deliberate ;) ) mistakes please feel free to put me right!
I agree with you Snoozi
If I grow two thirty foot x five foot beds with potatoes I find I have a 9-10 months supply and there are basically only two of us with the odd carrier bag going to my son & daughter.
I work on this philosophy;
Potatoes are relatively cheap all the year round (compared to some other vegetables) so I grow them basically to help with 'crop rotation' and prefer to grow more exotic and /or expensive forms of veg instead.
Over the year I think this is a more cost effective method of growing.
Thanks Snoozi and Tee, i may need to have a rethink.
Thanks again. :)
you can always grow some earlies in bags, that frees the ground up for other things ;D
This was my first year of having an allotment. I got some Desiree potatoes and some Pink Fir Apple. I had two beds 4ft x 15ft of Desiree and some in two piles of tyres. I grew the Pink Fir Apple in black flower buckets from the supermarket. I had no idea what to expect. I harvested the Pink Fir Apple and they came out as I expected, a reasonable amount as they are unusually misshaped, to be cooked and eaten in their skins mainly to have with salad. I harvested the Desiree maybe a bit early. We'd had so much rain that I was told that if I had left them in I could lose them all. I was really dissapointed. I didn't even know they would be red, that's how naive I was. They were so small, too. The ones in the tyres were not too bad but the ones in the ground, although they will last me a while, take so long to prepare that it annoys me. Certainly not enough for the two of us for a year. Next year I plan to get a different variety, maybe a few types but will not try to grow enough to be self sufficient. Just for the crop rotation thing I think.