Grow Potatoes now for harvesting for dinner on Christmas Day!
NOW ON SALE – seed potatoes ready for planting now (July/August) and harvesting about 12 weeks later.
Read on for instructions on how to plant and care for these so that you can enjoy some delicious new potatoes in late Autumn or even at Christmas time.
Buying Your Seed Potatoes & Something to Grow Them In
- Choose your seed potatoes from our range in store. These seed potatoes have been specially grown and stored to be ready for planting in July/August/September to give a harvest in late Autumn/November/December.
- Can be easily grown in large containers or in potato growing bags that you then fill with compost which we stock (see below).
- Growing in containers or bags enables you to grow them in a small space, or on a patio or deck, and they can be moved in their container if necessary. It can also make it easier to protect from frost (in the rare event we have a frost here).
- Don’t forget your compost! A 40 litre multipupose compost will work just fine, or use garden soil mixed with garden compost or well rotted manure.
How to plant them
Click here for a short video showing how to plant and grow these from our seed potato supplier
- Place about 10cm in depth of your compost into your chosen container or bag. If using a deep container, they can be half-filled.
- Evenly space 3 seed potatoes on top of your layer of compost, an equal distance apart. They should have about 30cm of space each.
- Cover the potatoes up with about another 10cm of compost.
- Water sparingly to make the compost moist, but being careful not to waterlog them. Always make sure there are drainage holes in the bottom of whichever bag or container you choose.
- Keep an eye on them, watering periodically to keep things moist.
- Once the foiliage developes to about 10cm tall cover the plants completely with another layer of compost
- When they grow through this do the same again and again until your bag/container is full. This allows more growing room to maximise the number of potatoes produced and keeps the light away from the tubers.
- Keep well watered and feed with a general purpose liquid fertiliser.
- The foliage will yellow and die down in late autumn and this can then be removed and composted.
- Your new potatoes can then be left in their pots in compost (kept fairly dry) until needed at Christmas or before. Enjoy!