Early Potatoes - Frost

johnjohn3423

I had a similar question last year but i'm new to this so no harm in asking. I was planning to plant my early potatoes over the weekend. I presume because of the frost promised that I should hold off until any chance of frost has passed? The same with onion sets?

Maidhci

johnjohn3423 wrote: »

I had a similar question last year but i'm new to this so no harm in asking. I was planning to plant my early potatoes over the weekend. I presume because of the frost promised that I should hold off until any chance of frost has passed? The same with onion sets?

What part of the country are you living in? I planted my first early potatoes mid-February. I intend to plant onion sets over the coming weekend, hopefully will be delivered tomorrow - the beds were prepared some weeks ago.

johnjohn3423

Maidhci wrote: »

What part of the country are you living in? I planted my first early potatoes mid-February. I intend to plant onion sets over the coming weekend, hopefully will be delivered tomorrow - the beds were prepared some weeks ago.

West coast. With the way the weather is promised over the weekend its looking like -4

Oldtree

Old farmer told me that frost after paddy's day would never do potatoes any harm. If you are seriously worried some cold night you could use a frost fleece. Am hoping to plant my onions this weekend.

Genghis Cant

I'd be more interested in ground conditions than frost at planting. If the soil was in good order, and it hard to see that given the winter we had, I'd plant a few early spuds. The clay will insulate them from the immediate frost forecast to come.

Here in the Midlands we're prone to heavy frost. I seen spuds planted early, sitting in the ground doing nothing until soil temp was suitable. Then they jump out of it.

When the do sprout it's the frost then that does harm. You could have a lovely crop burnt back to the ground by a late frost. You could of course cover them with fleece if it's a small amount you have or, like used to be done here, get up before sunrise and wash the frost off them with water. Oddly enough that protects them too!

johnjohn3423

Thanks for all the reply's i,ll hold off for a week or two. No need to plant them yet.

Nanazolie

Hi
I came to this forum to see if someone had asked the question before... I usually plant my potatoes (1st earlies and main crop) by mid March, but still haven't done so due to the bad weather we've had recently.
Will try and plant them this week. They won't sprout out before another few weeks, by which time the weather will have hopefully improved

Maidhci

Nanazolie wrote: »

Hi
I came to this forum to see if someone had asked the question before... I usually plant my potatoes (1st earlies and main crop) by mid March, but still haven't done so due to the bad weather we've had recently.
Will try and plant them this week. They won't sprout out before another few weeks, by which time the weather will have hopefully improved

I planted my 1st earlies in mid February, intend to plant 2nd earlies around early April but will not plant main crop varieties until mid to late April. I would think it is too early to plant main crop at this stage but definitely time or past time to plant 1st earlies. What varieties are you going to plant for 1st earlies?

Nanazolie

I couldn't plant the first earlies earlier anyway as the allotment lease was late this year and we only got access on March 6th. But then, it was just too cold and too wet to plant anything anyway. I usually plant all potato plants mid March, even the maincrop providing they have chitted enough. The reason is time keeping, I don't have much spare time to do heavy digging so prefer to do it all at the same time. The rest of the allotment is divided into small squares and raised beds for lighter crops so they don't require as much digging as the potatoes.
For 1st earlies, I chose Orla, main crop are Sarpo Mira. I selected them for their resistance to blight, a common issue when you plant in allotment where other people's crops can affect yours