[Kimberley04]

Hi

I am in the very lucky position of having a retired architect dad, who now potters around and does joinery and carpentry for fun.  He has very kindly offered to build me a beautiful summer house for the plot, which should be ready in the next few months.  The best place for this to go is on a patch of ground that I have JUST in the past three weeks put my potatoes into.

They are not showing yet and I wondered whether it would be possible to dig them up and transplant them somewhere else, or if they're just doomed now

[arugula]

Moving the potatoes doesn't sound like a good idea to me. I think you're likely to damage any growth/shoots which have started to establish underground.

[sarajane]

Its not too late to buy some more potatoesto plant.  I know I would sooner do this and have the luxury of a summer house

[simonwatson]

If you do try and move them, you need to move them like you would a large shrub, taking a big plug of soil all around them. All in all, it will be much easier to put some more in. A lot of the seed potatoes in the garden centers now are effectively pre-chitted as they've been sitting out in bright light for a few weeks.

[JayG]

He has very kindly offered to build me a beautiful summer house for the plot, which should be ready in the next few months.

If your father takes things at a nice gentle pace and your spuds are earlies you might just have the best of both worlds! 

[snowdrops]

Even if they're not earlies you could harvest them early.They'll just not have reached as big a tuber as they would have done-then you can sit in your new summerhouse & share them with your dad

[Kimberley04]

Thanks all for tthe advice - I'm going to do exactly that and leave the potatoes be (which have JUST started showing, so how could I disturb them now ) and if need be harvest them early.

I will need to start sorting out a base shortly, but as it'll be an off the ground one, I'm just going to try and work it around the potato rows as best as I can.  It could make harvesting tricky, but I'll just have to live with that.

Thanks again