[Ivor Backache]

Right next to a ham salad.

More by accident than design but I will do this again next year. I kept back some Lady Christl thinking that poor crop yields would increase seed prices but that never materialised.
Instead of chitting in the usual way I put them in small pots and just covered with compost/soil mixture, and placed on a bedroom windowsill.  That was in the 1st week of March. 4 weeks later they were transferred to large pots with a little horse manure and covered with soil and left in the conservatory. The shoots were through before I received my seed potato order. Another 3 weeks and they were transferred to a cold frame and they have grown quite well.  Very leggy but I put that down to poor quality light. (sun low in the sky)
Yesterday I pulled two roots to find enough for two. Half were the size of a gobstopper and the others were egg size. I still have another 9 pots.
Instead of trying for Christmas potatoes with shorter days and falling temps, I think it is better to go for the easter potato when light and temp are improving. Something to think about.

[solway cropper]

I'd go along with that. We had our first new potatoes of the year today (Home Guard). They were planted in a big tub in the greenhouse mid February, same as previous years, but are a week or so later and have given a smaller yield but that's probably down to the cold spring.

With the prevalence of blight in recent years I can't really see Christmas potatoes being a viable option any more. In my experience they were a waste of time anyway and we always have roasties with our Christmas dinner.