Potatoes for a full year

heretothere

Hi all,

I tried my hand at gardening last year and it wasn't a complete disaster. This year I am going to plant more spuds, I planted some I bought which I left to sprout. They turned out well, if a little harder than your usual shop bought spud. My questions is this, if I want to have a fairly consistent supply for 2 adults how many and how often should I plant them? We would eat potatoes maybe 2/3 times a week.

Also I found once I picked my carrots they went really limp within 24 hours. Even if I left them in a linin bag in the dark/ cool garage. Any ideas?

Deub

I am far from being an expert so don’t take it at face value.

if I were you, I would at least do earlies, maincrop. If you can do late season potatoes in addition, do them. If you can get 2 different types of maincrop, even better. The idea behind it is, you get “fresh” potatoes for as long as possible. Getting 2 types of maincrop is to avoid having all your eggs in one basket. One may do well one year but not really good the following depending how the weather is.

On the number you need to plant, there isn’t a simple answer. Consider this year as trial and you will be able to adjust the following years. A quick search says for 2kg eaten per week, you would 4.5k of seed potatoes. You need to keep in mind that you will have to rotate your crop so the plot is used once every 3 years for potatoes.

heretothere

Thank you :)

SouthWesterly

I sowed 45kg of seed potato last year for 2 adults and 2 young kids.

It will see me to the summer

Danzy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118755302#Comment_118755302

Do you cut them down to each súil

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118755302#Comment_118755302

45kg of seed potatoes?

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118756259#Comment_118756259

That's what I said. 😁

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118755601#Comment_118755601

No. I just planted them. We planted 60kg the previous year but got a very poor return. Did better last year with about 250kg harvested.

We sold some new potatoes at the gate.

Planted 6 varieties. This year I only have 5 types due to the increased cost of them

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118756264#Comment_118756264

Sorry but I may have missed something. You planted 60kg of seed potatoes and you harvested 260kg last year?

it would work out for every potato planted, you harvested just over 4 potato on average.

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118756388#Comment_118756388

To be fair I probably gave 10kg of that seed to friends who didn't have any and I'm extrapolating from the earlies which we weighed at 90kg from 2 types.

Your 4 potaoes must be very big to get that figure. You're looking a spud weighing 1kg each.... I wish😁

SouthWesterly

Just to give some scale to my place.

We have 4.5c acres. I've 1/2 acre given to a veg garden, Orchard and chickens.

Just under half that makes up the veg garden. I have 22 beds. Some of them are 30m long.

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118756456#Comment_118756456

I must have a brain freeze because I don’t understand your numbers. 60kg of seed potatoes represent a lot of potato plants (20 to 30 potato seeds per kg).

Even 50kg of potato seeds, you should have had at least 1000 potato plants!

Unless you mean 60 potato seeds gave you 260kg which means 4kg of potatoes harvested per plant. It would make more sense.

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118756681#Comment_118756681

I never said each plant gave 4 potatoes. You did.

I planted about 50kg of seed. I got about 260 kg at harvest. Just accept it. Picture of some of them above.

I got a lot less the previous year. Lost a lot to slugs that year.

MacDanger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118756962#Comment_118756962

Not to be answering for someone else but I think what they're asking is that a 1:5 ratio doesn't sound great and that for that amount of seed potatoes, you should have more output? e.g. if you plant one seed potato weighing say 100g, what weight of spuds would you expect? 1kg? More?

Deub

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118757036#Comment_118757036

Thank you. That’s what I meant.

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118757036#Comment_118757036

Thats the thing with gardening. You can never be sure of your future yield.

The previous year I planted the same. We had a wet year. Slugs got to the spuds in the ground. I was out of very small spuds by January.

Last year we had a drought when we needed rain for growth. I weighed what i kept and dumped the damaged ones.

I've 50kg this year. Probably plant about 40kg after friends get a few. Who knows what I'll harvest. Once I've enough for our use during the year. I'm happy.

I sowed 4 rows of peas last year. Saw them coming up. The next day there wasn't one left.

cityboyjim

Just after starting to dig my garden again and there seems to be lots of potatoes still in the ground from last year that I missed when harvesting .Can I replant those as seed potatoes .In good shape with decent sprouts .Thanks in advance .

maestroamado

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058236191/potatoes-for-a-full-year

The best thing to do with carrots is leave them in the ground through the winter... even in heavy frost all that will be damaged is the very top...

MacDanger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118826220#Comment_118826220

Doing the same here, hoping to get the 1st & 2nd earlies in the ground by the end of the weekend.

As far as spuds leftover in the ground goes, my understanding is that they're grand to plant now as seeds

This may be a stupid question :) but are seed potatoes just ones you donr eat and keep till next year?

SouthWesterly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118840073#Comment_118840073

They are kept in fridges to keep them dormant

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118840548#Comment_118840548

Ahhhh OK cool thanks for the information