[Weston grower]

I tried Christmas potatoes this year - put them into the ground in Aug. Same story as a lot of people - the early frost did for them and I got a poor crop.

This year I have seen that you can get second crop potatoes that are planted in June. That gives them a little longer to grow. Has anyone tried this and what sort of results did you get?

Cheers, WG

[NASH]

I tried my maincrop planted late June but as I live in the wet west they got blight so did not get anywhere near their potential.

[aelf]

I have tried Christmas spuds three years on the run now with no success so I'm going to concentrate on growing enough main crop to see me through. My main problem here is storage as I have nowhere store the harvest.

I'm looking longingly at the spare room - radiator off, window open a little and some racking. 

OH would not allow it - she just doesn't understand 

[mumofstig]

If you plant 1st or 2nd earlies you will get crops before the frost, as long as blight don't get them.

But what will you gain from later planting though? the longer the potatoes are left in the ground the more slug/insect damage they will have...........and if we have a cold early winter like this one they could get frozen and spoilt in the soil, even if the tops have finished........a lot of people had deeply frozen soil and couldn't get their parsnips out this year

If you lift them for storage they will taste no different to those planted and lifted at the usual times.

[Kristen]

I grew 3 bags (3 seed tubers each). They were in the (cold) conservatory until I tipped them out on Christmas day - the "tops" had long since gone squishy.  Tasted like .... New Potatoes

The bags were outside until the weather good colder in the Autumn

Yield was a bit pathetic ... but then I didn't get around to earthing them up, let alone feeding them, so all they had was water(and the muck in the bottom of the bags).

[eeedowls]

I pulled my main crop container spuds up in early September, and stored in a hessian sack they were delicious as part of Christmas dinner! (Lady Balfour)