Allotment Gardening Advice Help Chat
Growing => Grow Your Own => Topic started by: aejonm on June 15, 2021, 09:43
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i have been given some main crop potatoes from Poland. as i have started digging up the first early crop, can i plant a second sowing of these main crop potatoes in the same ground. it will help in maintaining our crop rotation plan, but will i get poor or diseased potatoes?
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You can, but there is a risk of any disease picked up by the first crop being passed on to the second.
I wonder if the risk is overrated. What is the difference in disease risk between having two succesive crops of the same family in one bed over one season compared to having one crop in a bed for the entire season? If you plant first earlies you are harvesting them after about 10 weeks, maincrops are harvested after 18 weeks or a bit longer, so two successive crops of first earlies are occupying a potato bed for about the same time as one crop of maincrop.
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I’d say it’s a bit late to plant them now. Main crop potatoes take about 15-20 weeks to grow, and will be killed by the first frost.
If you have a greenhouse or poly tunnel you could grow them in bags in there.
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You may get a reduced crop as they will be missing a lot of sunlight from the long days of mid summer and you will need to water regularly as the soil will be much drier planting now. You may also have a problem with blight that could strike before the potatoes are a decent size. If the ground’s doing nothing else, then give it a go, but I wouldn’t get your hopes up too much.
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Might be better to plant another early variety. I believe in Scandinavia they don't plant earlies until June.