Allotments 4 All

I'm probably showing my ignorance. Tesco are selling (and have been for a bit) English new potatoes - how are they grown so early? Or are they stored over winter somehow, and just brought out when Tesco decide it's Spring?

If you buy 'em, you ought to check 'em for horsemeat

Most probably from a place  they have renamed English alongside of the Nile.  Well I would not put it past them.

So does no-one actually know? I just wondered if I could get earlies to grow any earlier in for instance a polytunnel....but looks like it was a silly question.

Are they English or British?

This is why I ask
http://www.mysupermarket.co.uk/tesco-price-comparison/Vegetables/Tesco_Irish_Baby_New_Potatoes_1Kg.html

Quote from: small on March 02, 2013, 10:30:33
So does no-one actually know? I just wondered if I could get earlies to grow any earlier in for instance a polytunnel....but looks like it was a silly question.

Not a silly question at all and I would like to know how it is done.  I suspect with a lot of energy input in heated poly tunnels,  Even so if they are ready now they must have been planted 2-3 months ago - right in the heart if winter so the energy inputs must be huge.  I guess we could all get an early crop by using a greenhouse or poly but I am not sure it is worth it.

Check out the spud challenge in Edible Plants small, I planted mine tody under cloches, I also saw the earlies in Tesco and was wondering of their origin.   

Update: I did what perhaps I should have done in the first place, and asked tesco via their webmail. Today, I got a very nice phone call from their customer service place - the 'new' potatoes currently in store have come...out of store, as it were. They are held in cold storage from the 2012 crop.
So even if I splash out on a polytunnel, which I am seriously considering, I won't get my earlies any earlier...
Kev, my spuds are in buckets, some in the greenhouse some outside, I've never managed a meal earlier than mid-May though. Good job I still have some PFAs, as nice as any new young ones.

So they are not new potatoes at all but very old potatoes!   

Ah "new" potatoes - makes sense I guess and thanks for the follow up..

TBH I always thought the "new" potatoes were the titchy ones fom the previous year's maincrop.  You can't scrape them so I assumed they had 0been out of the ground for a longish while.  Seems I am right