Seed potatoes

arctictree

Anyone notice that seed potatoes are sold way too early in the shops? My local place stocks them in the middle of Feb and in cold springs (like this year), they are sold out or over chitted when time comes for planting.I like to plant my spuds late and generally have to resort to buying from the supermarket.

Tree

What you need is neighbours like me, who bought the seed spuds and has a bucketload of leftovers cause 2kg is too much for a small suburban garden (these weren't overchitted, seemed to be the last in stock though)

clearz

I had the opposite problem. I couldn't find any until very recently and only got them planted this week. I ordered 4 x 2kg bags online two weeks ago and heard nothing from them for 10 days so I bought 3 x 2kg bags in a local store, planning to cancel the online order. Then they arrived in the post the next day. I had to buy 30 x 65-litre containers to fit all of them and have been shovelling soil and compost all week. I live in a suburban house so I laughed upon reading Trees' post above about 2kg being too much. Try 14kg I won't be having any BBQs this summer because of the number of containers everywhere :P.

Tree

😂 😂

Julia_G

I forgot about my main crop seed potatoes and went to get them yesterday (planting them today) and a lot of them were riddled with slug damage, the majority are ok but they're also all soft and wrinkled. Should the non-slug damaged wrinkly ones be ok to plant??? Though would the slug damaged ones be ok too? (first checking for any residents of course)

PS. the bright green is just the egg carton

MacDanger

I'd say they'll be grand, nothing to lose by planting them anyway

Julia_G

I planted them all out sure. The really bad ones that were eaten, I've cut them up to keep only the sprout

arctictree

I have the same. Only planting out today as my rotovator was broke and only fixed yesterday. Normally I rotovate, then leave for 10 days for the weeds to sprout, then rotovate and plant. I'll just have to rotovate once and keep weeding. @Julia_G - let us know how you get on!

arctictree

My late sown spuds are coming along nicely now. Just looking for some rain!

Julia_G

The second earlies aren't going well. No idea what's going on, it's as if they just stopped developing. The main crop that I planted much later is much taller and healthier in comparison. I dug up 3 plants (as it would be good timing to get the 2nd Earlies out) but the crop was so small and so few. Maybe 5 good salad potatoes out of 3 plants.

arctictree

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122359105#Comment_122359105

Could it be a lack of water? Before this week we had a dry spell where I had to water 3 or 4 times. Had to give them a good soaking. That's in the east. What part of the country are you in?

Julia_G

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122359408#Comment_122359408

East as well, Wicklow. I rarely water them as they are outside, so maybe!

MacDanger

Hi All

I planted Kellys potatoes (Kelly - Maincrop Seed Potato - Blight Resistant - Tullyvin Garden Centre) in mid-April and harvested the first of them this week, they're awful watery though. Anyone have experience with these?

In the description linked above, they're described as "floury" but at the moment, they're no where near!! I've been told that leaving them to grow another few months might help make them more floury, is there any truth to that?

I see online that they're used for deep frying so maybe they're pretty similar to Maris Pipers (which I hate)

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122554719#Comment_122554719

This year was a weird year for potatoes. I planted the same variety than last year and they are in an awful state currently. They are very short and some are already dead.

I wouldn’t use this year crop as benchmark if I were you. I see other websites says they are floury so I imagine in a normal year they should be.

Bill Hook

Mixed year here (midlands) for potatoes. Grew a 1st early variety called Prada which was horrible... watery and tasted poisonous even with no visible green bits.

Maincrop Connect and Nola have done well and taste lovely. Harvested most of them last week.

arctictree

My shop bought roosters have done really well this year. Planted on 28th May and seem to have avoided all the weeds that come with the early planting.

I stand by my comment at the start of this thread. Stores are selling seed potatoes way too early.