Sorry to go on about them again. To recap; there are two varieties which in
my stupidity I forgot what they are. I was certain the ones on the right of
the bed were Nicola, but the flowers are wrong for that, sort of pale
violet. The ones on the left of the bed have white flowers however.

But I just had a brainstorm and am now pretty certain the non-Nicolas may be
Charlottes. That would fit the violent flowers, so I've got my ends of the
bed mixed up.

I lifted two of the violet-flowered ones yesterday and got about 500g of
small, very tasty, spuds off them. Today I lifted some of the white flowered
possibly-nicolas and there were very few spuds of a significant size, in
fact off four plants I got only 16 spuds, about 400g in total, which is
disappointing. But there were a fair few very tiny little proto-spuds.

Looking at the web, if my attempts to reconstruct my memory regarding
varieties are correct, they are both actually "second earlies", not "first
earlies". If so, have I lifted them too early, and should I leave the rest
for a few more weeks? Is there anything I can do to encourage more of a
yield at this late stage? Yesterday's possibly-charlottes were very nice,
and I'm hoping today's perhaps-nicolas will be too, but I was rather hoping
for a few more per plant than I've got.


Ian

Ian B wrote:
Sorry to go on about them again. To recap; there are two varieties which in
my stupidity I forgot what they are. I was certain the ones on the right of
the bed were Nicola, but the flowers are wrong for that, sort of pale
violet. The ones on the left of the bed have white flowers however.

Not really related to your questions, but if it makes you feel any better ..

We have one bed that is meant to be all one type (Spirit, iirc) and one bed
that is 5 different varieties, including some more Spirit.

On the mixed bed, all of the plants have huge spikes of bright pink flowers.
All of them. No mixing, no exceptions.

The unmixed bed has one or two with pure white flowers.

I'm confused!

"Ian B" wrote
Sorry to go on about them again. To recap; there are two varieties which
in my stupidity I forgot what they are. I was certain the ones on the
right of the bed were Nicola, but the flowers are wrong for that, sort of
pale violet. The ones on the left of the bed have white flowers however.

But I just had a brainstorm and am now pretty certain the non-Nicolas may
be Charlottes. That would fit the violent flowers, so I've got my ends of
the bed mixed up.

I lifted two of the violet-flowered ones yesterday and got about 500g of
small, very tasty, spuds off them. Today I lifted some of the white
flowered possibly-nicolas and there were very few spuds of a significant
size, in fact off four plants I got only 16 spuds, about 400g in total,
which is disappointing. But there were a fair few very tiny little
proto-spuds.

Looking at the web, if my attempts to reconstruct my memory regarding
varieties are correct, they are both actually "second earlies", not "first
earlies". If so, have I lifted them too early, and should I leave the rest
for a few more weeks? Is there anything I can do to encourage more of a
yield at this late stage? Yesterday's possibly-charlottes were very nice,
and I'm hoping today's perhaps-nicolas will be too, but I was rather
hoping for a few more per plant than I've got.


May I suggest you do what we do and label everything with type and variety.
We use large 12 inch plastic stick labels (50 for about £16.) and a
"Brother" labeller which is a durable system (unless I step back on them)
even out on the allotment. With potatoes we tie the label onto the top of a
cane so we can see where varieties are even when the foliage has grown.
That way you learn which variety to grow again and which to avoid.

--
Regards
Bob Hobden
W.of London. UK