[silver8]

Really like the idea of supplying all the veg for Christmas lunch. Have grown some early potatoes this year (which im currently eating) but no main crop. Have seen some in a seed catologue that you sow in August and are ready for Christmas - are these called lates? However, at £9 for 2 kilos these sounded very expensive. Does anyone know of a cheaper supplier that will deliver. Preferably organic. Any recommended varieties?

[comic_muse]

I did this....about 10 years ago, before moving house ( & leaving the G/H behind).....using a large 'muck bucket' in the Greenhouse.  I simply used some current year 'new potatoes', I greened them up & chitted them, & used Grow Bag compost in the bucket.  The plants were very lax....low light I guess, & not a superb crop.....but.....new potatoes, on Christmas day, never the less.  To do the planting time calculation, 'Google' the variety you are looking to grow re. cropping time & add a bit for the season being 'on it's head.  I guess if you've got 'grow lights' it's easier. I always spray my chitting potatoes with Seaweed solution to get them going & feed as best I can & theres no doubt anything 'out of season' needs all the help it can get.

[yewtreemob]

I tried it last year.  Yes the tubers were expensive to buy - I think they are expensively cold stored till August.

I planted some outside in the ground and some in containers in the g/house.

Did it work?  Did it **$$3**!!  All I got was very limited top growth and a slimy mess underground.  Don't let me put you off - I also had dreams of an entirly home grown Christmas lunch but it was not to be.

[GrannieAnnie]

Hi Silver8.  I tried the Christmas potato thing last year.  I didn't have any seed potatoes, but just saved some nice ones from OH's DIL which were supermarket ones which were shooting.  They were Charlotte salad types.  I planted them at the end of August, but they were actually a llittle late for Christmas, we had them on New Year's Day.

The yield wasn't great, and out of 4 pots which I'd grown in the greenhouse, I only got 2 plants, one did rot and go slimy, and the other one just disappeared, I think the frost got them, even in the greenhouse, but what I did get was DELICIOUS!!!!!