Potatoes June/July

M0ney

OK so I've been on here asking for a little advice on growing peas. I'm slowly but surely sorting out my garden and I know have around 3/4 square meters which I plan on planting potatoes.

The soil appears to be in good shape, what I'd like to know is at this time of year what type of potatoes should I be planting and how should I be spacing them out? Also roughly how many seed potatoes should I be getting given the area I have mentioned above...?

Thanks in advance.

Linda32

Sorry to say but you will be hard pushed to find seed potatoes now. As for what type to grow well its best to think about the end use, for example do you want little new poatotes or baking potatoes, then buy the seeds accordingly. You will be able to buy them around March. Spacing wise you want about a foot between each seed potato.

trollopscarletwoman

M0ney wrote: »

OK so I've been on here asking for a little advice on growing peas. I'm slowly but surely sorting out my garden and I know have around 3/4 square meters which I plan on planting potatoes.

The soil appears to be in good shape, what I'd like to know is at this time of year what type of potatoes should I be planting and how should I be spacing them out? Also roughly how many seed potatoes should I be getting given the area I have mentioned above...?

Thanks in advance.

Hello.

Rather late for potatoes even if as suggested you could find the seeds. Even then in the garden you would have to cover them in some way because they are not frost hardy.

If you can find some seeds then you could do what I'm going to do. I've kept some seeds back and will plant them in a container for christmas dinner.

I'm fortunate to have a greenhouse but any sort of cover will do.

forgotmyname

I grew rocket potatoes around this time of year when i 1st got my allotment.

They certainly lived upto their name. We went on holiday towards the end of august and when we came back we harvested them. Quite a crop for such a short time.

safestored4

As advised in the last post you can still plant first early and salad potatoes at this time of year and get a decent crop. Our local Homebase is presently selling off their remaining stock at 99p for a 2kilo bag so it would be worth a look in if you have a branch nearby. I put in some Charlottes in tubs a couple of weeks ago and they are already growing strongly.

sobie

IF you find seed potatoes, (highly unlikely) check they are still firm, and that the shoots are small and green. Soft spuds with long white shoots will produce lots of top growth, but a poor crop - although I guess some crop is better than none.

In a few weeks time (mid August) some large garden centres stock varieties of 'winter' spuds. As Trollopscarletwoman has said, these are planted in containers in greenhouses and will be ready for Christmas.

Dizzy_Ditzy

I've just got an allotment and they all been telling me that I can just about still get some potatoes in, so I have

I found some well chitted ones in poundstretcher and chucked them in. They were reduced to 75p a bag. If nothing comes of it, I've only lost 75p.

You can do charlottes now, which are new potatoes. They'll be ready quickly enough, and if you stagger planting and/or store them well, you'll be harvesting at Christmas! Well, that's what they tell me so I'm going for it

M0ney

Thanks everyone, as yous can probably tell I'm a bit of a novice anyway I planted beetroot and carrots today and have dug some more of the garden so I'll look around for some seed potatoes.

Excuse my ignorance but what's the reason for me not being able to just plant any old potato I've got left over from eating potatoes? They always seem to sprout shoots?

McKneff

Just to clarify, when people say 'seeds'
they mean 'seed Potatoes' not little seeds in packets.


It can be very confusing for a new gardener. I have just harvested our first 'boiling' today, they were small, but just absolutely delicious,....

M0ney

McKneff wrote: »

Just to clarify, when people say 'seeds'
they mean 'seed Potatoes' not little seeds in packets.


It can be very confusing for a new gardener. I have just harvested our first 'boiling' today, they were small, but just absolutely delicious,....

Thanks yes, I was aware that they look much the same as whole potatoes but I was wondering what the reason for avoiding simply using any normal potato (intended for eating) and using a "seed" potato instead.

Linda32

Its really just a case of 'not best practice' you can do that and you are likely to get a crop. But these always a chance of introducing viruses.

That said, when you do plant the seed potatoes and harvest them you will, without a doubt miss some and the following year they will sprout so if these in turn produce a crop, whats the difference?