Page 36 - ALG Issue 3 2022

vegetables
Second cropping success
If you love the taste of new potatoes, you’ll want to extend the season with a second planting now. KG editor, Steve Ott, has some simple top tips for sure- fire success.
Second cropping potatoes are simply early, quick-growing varieties that have been cold stored by the suppliers to prevent chitting (sprouting). These will be ready to harvest within 12-14 weeks and by storing them, you can experience that fresh-dug flavour at Christmas, too.
CHOOSING THE RIGHT VARIETIES
Search the catalogues and you are likely to be offered varieties such as ‘Carlingford’, ‘Maris Peer’, ‘Nicola’ or ‘Charlotte’. These early varieties will produce a crop a little faster than maincrop types and can therefore take advantage of the late summer conditions to grow before the onset of winter. It is also perfectly possible to produce a second crop from tubers saved from spring plantings.
SAVING TUBERS
You will usually be buying tubers for spring planting from January to March and it can be a challenge to keep them in good condition until July/August when they are needed. However, if
you can find a cool, light place, then although they will become a little wrinkled, they will still quickly grow away when planted. Some go further and store theirs in old tins sealed with waterproof tape or in air-tight plastic containers filled with dry sand and buried in a cool spot in the garden.
If all this seems like too much trouble, or you simply didn’t save any tubers in the spring, treat yourself to some new seed potatoes from one of the many reputable suppliers online or in garden centres.
PLANTING YOUR TUBERS
Potato blight is endemic by July. Early potatoes usually suffer less when planted in spring since they are
Potato bags are available from some seed companies, or you may choose to grow them in planters or large patio tubs
harvested before the disease strikes, but not so with second croppers. For this reason, they are best either planted in a polytunnel or greenhouse border where they are better protected from airborne spores, or in bags, pots or other containers so that they can be moved under cover as they develop.
Potato bags are available from some seed companies, or you may choose
to grow them in planters or large patio tubs. In the bags below, just one tuber will do, but in a large patio tub you could plant three. The variety used here is ‘Charlotte’.
36 Allotment and Leisure Gardener