Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: casper on July 28, 2012, 22:10
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I planted first earlies on the 1st April, they started really well and earthing up was every day, they appeared really healthy very green and lots of folage, problem was I did not know if they were okay for pulling up, so I left them, they did not flower but last week the leaves started to look tatty so I pulled them up and hay ho I had lovely little spuds, Can anybody tell me what the little dangly tiny potatoes were on the roots Please xx
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Err, I think they're just very undeveloped spuds.
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Stop it you Yorkie :D I am new to this potato game, so if I had left them would I have got more :unsure: x
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Perhaps so, but it is something I have asked about on here that, if you furtle underneath the plant for your harvest but don't dig it up, you may get some more pots. Mine got blight but next year I may try it.
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There is an idea for planting spuds inder a thick black plastic sheet. You plant the spud through a hole in the sheet, the foliage grows through the hole and the spuds grow under the plastic. To gather the spuds as and when you want, just grope under the sheet.
I've tried it a couple of times but the thought of all that good rain flowing OFF the plastic and not soaking into the soil to nourish the plant leaves me uneasy.
Cheers, Tony.
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There were lots of the undeveloped little potatoes, I feel a bit cheated now, but the potatoes I got were fantastic, I think I would have foraged for them, only i had a viewing on my house and the potatoe grow bags were looking tatty and needed to go, given the chance would have taken them a few at a time :)
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You always get some really small tubers.
If the foliage is still green, they have the potential to grow a bit more - but not if the foliage has died down.
Make sure you dig them up anyway as they will become volunteer spuds next year, carrying the risk of blight if you've had it this year.
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Thankfully no sign off blight, Is it common in gardens or is it that allotments are affected the most, or is the risk the same for everbody?? :)
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I think the risk itself is probably greater in allotments, in that they are often more exposed and there are a lot of hosts for the blight spores to land on / spread from. The spores are windborne.
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Thanks :)
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Hi Casper - it's been a really bad year with all the rain and cold with little sunshine.. this has affected nearly all the spud crop throughout the country - even in Scotland where the seed spuds are grown.. there are a few pockets dotted around whose spuds did well so dont be alarmed with your small crop..
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Interesing what you say about blight on allotments more as I grow my toms in the garden and touch wood they are blight free