Potato Growing 2025

My Jazzy earlies were planted very late so I am still sitting on my hands to avoid furtling. Lots of healthy top growth, I must wait until they begin to go over.
Lathering at the mouth in anticipation.

 

It's well worth the wait.

 

Just curious if anyone with first earlies has an opinion on letting the plant completely die back before harvesting the tubers or if they do it to a fixed timescale, or when they start to see yellowing of some of the leaves etc? I'm just wondering if letting the foliage die completely back enhancing the yield or if it's already finished producing the tubers and is just in senescence.

 

No point in waiting till the top growth dies back. More risk from wireworm and slugs etc once they are not actively growing. I usually wait till I see flowers or evidence they have flowered . Then have a look if they are too small, push the soil back if not go for it. That said I only lift earlies as I want them to eat, so sometimes they are dying back by the time I'm lifting the last. Main crop and late ones get dug en masse and stored in paper sacks.

 

Im having to water mine really regularly, its in one of those plastic cloth pots and it seems to hold barely any moisture at all.

The plants are still big and green, flowers just coming out in a week or so, do I wait till they die back? ill leave a few flowers as I want to see if it makes seeds but I know that can reduce the potato size.

again no clue the variety beyond being purple fleshed and black skinned. exciting!

 

Suggest you calculate the time since planting. Then if more than ,say,12 weeks, lean into them and scrab around (furtle ) to find a potato or two. Then take the decision to either:
a)be patient
b)tip them out and assess your success

 

@Adam I , from the description my guess would be some like Shetland black. If that is the case they are a late maincrop and you are looking at 14-18 weeks from planting to harvest, but I agree worth checking before.

 

Ok ill check them!

 

Just lifted the first of the Winston, have to say, looking good, decent size(some big enough for jackets) and not many tiny ones, happy with these, taste test to come.

 

I harvested the first pentland javelins the other day, which produced a surprisingly good crop. I grew them in bags and they were blemish free and tasted fantastic. Still have another 11 bags to harvest so they should keep us going quite a while.

 

I’ve lifted earlies and main crop, disappointing yields this year - probably due to my absence for a month over May/june resulting in not enough watering ! So all this space available now … what to put there ? I’m thinking more carrot and parsnips but will they have time to grow well ? Any thoughts or suggestions please?

 

Thanks Jwk. I’d love to plant some small leeks but, sadly, over the last two seasons they’ve been attacked and were inedible despite growing ok ….
Think I’ll go for carrot and maybe an optimistic row 50/50 beetroot/parsnip and hope for a mild autumn … I accept that you are most probably correct re parsnip …

 

We get early frosts in NE Scotland, the farmers up here grow a lot of root crops under fleece, keeps both the frost and the pests off the crop. Might be worth trying growing under some fleece/cover?