On Spuds

Or 'Onward, Spuds', as it should perhaps be called!

I was right, 7 rows. All ridged up and ready to go! As you can see if you look closely, the rows had some additional Gromore pellet fertiliser sprinkled on.

As I said before, I only got 2 bags of seed potatos, as our local Garden Centre had nearly sold out, so I was a bit stumped on varieties.

I visited another Garden Centre about a week after this picture was taken. They had loads of bags of seed spuds, all different types. I swore quietly under my breath, and vowed to make sure I got my seed early enough next time. (This year, I was buying seed in February.)

In due course the potatos sprouted. And they grew. As did the weeds. That was all the Gromore you see. And all the undisturbed seeds that were in the soil went beserk. I was hoeing and weeding all the time!

I mounded up the spuds twice, as I weeded, to stop the light getting to them and turning the tubers green.

I got a bit paranoid about the prospect of getting blight, so I did a bit of research, and found out that 'Bordeaux Mixture' was just the sort of thing to use as a preventative. The only other option was 'Dithane', and as I was informed 'Bordeaux' is organic, I assumed I could freely used 'Bordeaux' to my hearts content. Bordeaux Mixture is some sort of Copper Sulphate and lime mix I think.......how the hell can that be organic? Oh well. I didn't get blight though, but my potato plants were turned a lovely pale blue colour. They did look odd.

The potatoes grew really well, and by July we were starting to get our first new spuds. They were very small to start with. As I said before, we had put Pink Fir Apple (hereafter known as PFA, cos I'm really lazy!) in as new potatoes, as my Dad grew some once, and I think they have a wonderful taste. The only problem with PFA is that they are an irregular shaped potato, and have lots of small protuberances growing off them. They tend to grow in clumps, so scrubbing the dirt off them can be a bit of a pain, but certainly worth the bother. PFA are really meant as a Maincrop and should be left in the ground to mature. But they were good smothered in butter!

The PFA kept us in New Potatoes till August, up to the time I lifted my maincrop.

I started digging the Maincrop up once I started to notice small holes in them. I had been keeping an eye on them, pulling the dirt back to have a look every now and again and then covering them over again. I believe these were caused by Wireworm. Wireworm happens to inhabit land that has lain fallow for some time, but I never found a worm to prove my theory. My neighbouring Allotmenteer, Julie, had all her spuds eaten from the inside, leaving only skins, so of course I went into 'Panic Mode', and dug them all up. The Wire Worm had given them a little beating, but they were goo spuds. Some were huge. My sister said "They're not spuds, they're planets."

Digging them up was actually quite a daft thing to do. The spuds only develop skins once the main plant shrivels up, and certainly don't seem to grow good skins once they are dug up. So what I ended up with was 2 and a half sacks of very large new potatoes. Some had better skins than others. So I washed them, dried them, and stored them away in my larder. This only kept us in spuds till mid November. What I should have done was hack the top growth off and let the skins develop. Something I will try this year.

You can now get an idea of how many plants you need to get you through the year, if you want to be self sufficient in spuds. Put simply, lots. The earliest I have got spuds out of the ground is mid May. So your Maincrop have to last right through the winter till then. What you need is as many First and Second earlies as you can to keep you going through the summer till the Maincrop are ready, and then enough Maincrop to get you through to the following May.

In 2008 I grew 70 plants, 30 PFA and 40 Cara. These 70 plants kept us in spuds for about 4 and a half months.

I have grown twice as many plants this year, but this still probably won't be enough. We shall see at Harvest time.

But this all takes up a lot of land. This is why I took on the other complete allotment, as after I had planted my spuds, I had little room for anything else.

If you plan to store spuds in sacks yourself, as I did, please make sure they are dry. Any moisture or damp mud clinging to them will soon go mouldy and they will smell bad. Trust me. I had to hand wash every spud, as I left damp mud on some of them, assuming they would be OK. Not so.

I also found that the Cara were very watery to start with, but improved as they dried out a little. I think they were at their best about a month after planting.

Thats enough on last years spuds. Time to move on.