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'Mike'[_4_] · 30-05-2011, 04:40 PM posted to uk.rec.gardening

"Janet" wrote in message
...
In article ,
says...

I am a novice gardener and have planted seed potatoes and expect a crop
very
soon. I have a lot of foliage which is now flowering but have no idea
when
to harvest. I have watered well during the hot weather.

The type of potatoes are Charlotte, Highland Burgundy Red main crop and
Salad Blue second early.

Is there a way of knowing when they are ready?

When they start flowering, you can gently fossick around one plant's
roots to see what's there. Always lift one or two plants to enjoy the very
first, tiny marble-sized crop; steamed, buttered, salted, scoffed.

But really, when to harvest depends on when and how you plan to eat the
potatoes. Are you growing for economy or culinary quality? If you plan to
grow a big maincrop to store and feed you all winter, you will need dark
dry cool but frost free storage for them.

I much prefer to grow potatoes (and any veg) to eat them at their optimum
point, dug fresh from the ground all summer..because you can't buy that
freshness and flavour. So I grow earlies and lates just to extend the
supply of small fresh potatoes. I don't aim to grow huge potatoes for
baking. At the end of summer I lift clean and sort whatever's left, and
they will all be eaten by November. We eat shop potatoes from November
till the new garden crop in June.

Janet.

Grow them on the surface on a bed of compost but under black plastic, and
you will always have 'straight from the garden spuds' because you can lift
the plastic and "pick the ready ones"

Been there. Done that. Got a massive crop. (Actually tooooooooooooo many for
us so we supplied the neighbours)

Mike

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