Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: dmg on July 16, 2013, 22:52
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I have 5 varieties of first earlies and 2 maincrop. That are all planted within a week of each other and are going on for about 14/15 weeks old.
with the exception of the maris piper not one of the other varieties have grown since I earthed up about 4 weeks ago all are sitting only a foot high compared to everyone else's 3ft.
The maris pipers have also flowered and set fruit but haven't died back where as only a couple of the earlies are just flowering. The early potatoes have signs of blackleg but the stems are still all green.
Any help/insight appreciated
Dmg
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Most folks harvest first earlies from 10-12 weeks so there should be plenty under there by now. That's why they call them new potatoes. Have a feel under the soil/compost and see. Height of haulms is dependent on variety and varies from about 1 foot to 4 foot. Not all potatoes flower and even those that do can be sporadic so not a good indicator of anything.
Maincrop will need a few more weeks yet.
What sign of blackleg are yours showing?
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Hi SC
The blackleg signs where on the leaves, they are all dying back but the stems where all fine.
I know about the maincrop not being ready yet but was surprised that it had flowered and set fruit at this stage
Dmg
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They are dieing back because they are ready, if none of the stems are black/rotting at ground level.
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Thanks mum,
I will start to lift a few. The reason I thought it was blackleg was the foliage was dying back from several weeks ago and some that I had lifted did have the odd mushy one
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The potato you planted goes mushy - so that may explain the ones you've been finding - let's hope so ;)