Potatoes in Full Bloom

Just a brief look at the potatoes at this time of year. They have mostly all grown really well, hopefully breaking up the crappy soil they are growing in. The ones nearest the forground are in flower and have grown the most. They are the main crop potatoes,  Late Main Crop – “Verity”. The background ones haven’t grown so well, mostly because of attack by slugs. The furthest are the ones from the supermarket and they have been eaten the most. They grew well at first, but have been attacked too much. Hopefully they will recover a bit and we will see what we can dig up.

We have to think what we want to go in this bed once they potatoes start getting dug up. It will be good to be well prepared.

Potatoes Sprouting

The potatoes are sprouting! Of course the potatoes on the far left of the bed have come up first, since they were the first to be planted and were the most sprouted. These will mainly be the sprouting supermarket ones but there is evidence elsewhere in the bed that the seed potatoes are starting too.

In the potato box too there are signs of sprouting. I’m not sure if the soil in the potato box gets too dry or not, or if the lumps of crappy hard soil are too big for the potatoes to deal with, but thats what we are trying to find out! I transplated a couple of potatoes plants found growing randomly into the potato box too.

Potato Box

So I had this idea, the soil in the beds I am constructing at the back in front of the shed is pretty bad and was covered in grass and weeds last year. I decided, since potatoes are supposed to improve the condition of the soil and help suppress some of the grass weeds, I could build a potato box to ‘process’ the worst of it. I knocked together this here ‘box’, with room for adding another level, and have been filling it with all the most persistant clumps of turf and clay from this area and others. In this box I’ve planted some more of the mini-tubers I planted elsewhere and some of the shop bought potatoes that had sprouted. It should be pretty fully if they all grow. I’ll keep filling it as I need to as I continue to work on preparing the beds at the back. Hopefully by the end of the year I will be able to remove the box, harvest all the potatoes and spread the lovely conditioned soil back over the beds. Sounds like a good plan.

First Potato Planting

So the first potatoes have gone in. Starting on the left side of the new front bed and then we’ll be working left planting as the soil and potatoes are ready. The ones planted so far are a couple of supermarket bought, cupboard sprouters. Some interesting salad potatoes of two different types. The main ordered seed potatoes have been put in the box to chit.

The Potatoes Have Arrived!

Yes indeed, we are go for potatoes! These I ordered from the extremely interesting range of Alan Romans. Problem is, on opening the packet I realised that one of the 5 piece rare minituber types I ordered had been missed off and replaced by a different type. Here on the left are ‘Champions’ which sound equally interesting as the ones I originally ordered. I’ve emailed Alan Romans and we’ll see what they want to do. Personally I wouldn’t mind keeping hold of these anyway, they sound quite good. So in the meantime I’ll try getting these up to the allotment to start chitting them in The Box while I prepare the front beds for them. The plan has changed so the two front beds are going to be joined and dedicated to potatoes mainly. This gives us much more room to plant more potatoes and a chance to see if we can improve the soil of the entire new front bed.

Update: Alan Roman said it could be just a wrong label. Checking which type we have against their description proved too hard, 60% sure they are Fortyfold. Which ever, I don’t mind.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang

So my main seed potato order hasn’t arrived yet, but in the meantime I thought I would try ‘chitting’ potatoes for the first time. These are some old potatos bought from the supermarket that were particularly good to eat but started to spout. I’ve put these on my kitchen window sill to watch what happens, all going well I’ll find a place on the plot for them too. Not sure how long you are supposed to chit potatoes for. The variety is called Vivaldi, a particularly buttery salad potato. When I get the potato order through I chit them up at the allotment in the box.