[shokkyy]

The space I have for growing spuds in my garden isn't very big, so I'm toying with the idea of upping my yield (and variety choice) by growing some on my patio, in the polyethylene planters for spuds that all the seed suppliers seem to be selling now, maybe one of the 3 packs with 5 tubers each of 3 varieties. Anyone tried them? If so, did they manage to produce a useful crop? And isn't 5 tubers rather a lot for one planter with a 14" diameter?

Last year I didn't get any blight in my spud crop (though admittedly I didn't get too many spuds either) but I did lose all my tomato plants to it. So this year I'm a little nervous about blight hitting the spuds and I was thinking of trying one of the new varieties that are supposed to be immune to blight, i.e. Setanta, Sarpo Mira or Sarpo Axona. Anyone tried any of these? If so, what did you think of them?

[DD.]

I like to grow different varieties of spud, but every year I grow Sarpo Mira, as I know if the others fail through blight, they won't.

[sunshineband]

 We had useful yields in plastic tubs last year, from Maris Peer 

[shokkyy]

We had useful yields in plastic tubs last year, from Maris Peer 

Were you using the 18" X 14" tubs I'm seeing everywhere? And did you plant 5 tubers per tub with no problem?

[shokkyy]

I like to grow different varieties of spud, but every year I grow Sarpo Mira, as I know if the others fail through blight, they won't.

That sounds good. What were they like for taste and cooking versatility?

[DD.]

As a lot of people will tell you, they're not the best for taste, but they're fine for mash and as the tubers are large with a hard skin they make great baked spuds with a crunchy jacket.

The other advantage to the hard skin is very, very few slugs & other nasties.

[DD.]

I've been looking around at what's commerically available. I'm amazed at the prices they're asking for something you can do on the cheap with a bit of improvision, the contents of a growbag & a bag of seed spuds from Wilko's.

[shokkyy]

I've been looking around at what's commerically available. I'm amazed at the prices they're asking for something you can do on the cheap with a bit of improvision, the contents of a growbag & a bag of seed spuds from Wilko's.

Yes, I thought they were asking a lot for soft poly containers that likely won't last very long. I was considering having a search around a few bargain shops to see if I can't find some kind of container big enough that would do, but nothing I've got lying around is big enough. How about if I cut a plastic dustbin in half, or does it need to be breathable? One of those big baggies they use to deliver building materials would be ideal, if you could get them in a smaller size.

And I would like to try just a few tubers each of a few varieties, since I'm a newbie at spuds and there's so many different varieties, but it can be quite difficult to buy just a few tubers. My local garden centre does sell loose but only has a few of the most popular varieties. What I'd like to do is fill my main bed with something blight resistant and then use tubs to try out a few things to see which I like. There is a chap on ebay selling lots of 5, 10 tubers or 1.5kg in a big range of varieties, but postal charges would be very high.

[sunshineband]

 We had range of sizes, from largish like you mentioned to freebie Morrison pots and with one tuber in, these gave amazing yields -- 4.5 kg from 3 pots 

[DD.]

There's many things you can use, no doubt someone will be along and tell you what they've used. Things such as the "bags for life" from certain supermarkets.

There's a list of local independant nurseries that sell loose spuds here:

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=49027.0

perhaps there's one near you.

Perhaps you could pop your location into your profile, it can help.

[Iain@JBA]

shokkyy there are no blight immune potatoes but some are more resistant than others.
If you are groing maincrops in containers plant one potato for every 20 litres of compost you use. Earlies I use 17litres of compost and it seems to work nicely.

[digalotty]

http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/
this place has a selection of blight resistant spuds
also if you check homebase out they do a patio kit for £6 or 2 for £10 each one has 3 varieties and patio bags included ,  earlys second earlys and a main crop

[sunshineband]

http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/
this place has a selection of blight resistant spuds
also if you check homebase out they do a patio kit for £6 or 2 for £10 each one has 3 varieties and patio bags included ,  earlys second earlys and a main crop

They sound quite reasonably priced 

[digalotty]

yes this year im growing 6 veriaties of spuds in 1mtr square and conducting my own little survey   

[sunshineband]

one per sq m ?