Still no flowers on spuds!

Bought a tray of seed spuds in March. Chitted mine, gave some to a chum and our daughter took some back to the UK with her. Both my chum and daughter have flowers on their spuds (my chum never chitted his and put them straight in the ground) ..... But our spuds, although green, healthy but a bit on the leggy side - have NO flowers on! Does this mean there'll be no spuds on them? I planted them in early April (I think - can't lay my hands on my list at the mo)!
Many thanks pals!

 

Flowers are not relevant to spuds forming. Sometimes they flower ... sometimes not.

Flowers are sometimes a useful indicator of when spuds are ready .... but 13 weeks for earlies, although we have planted plenty so we started lifting at 9 weeks because the plants were vigorous.

If they are a main crop variety they need quite a bit longer.

 

Winnie, mine are the same so a bit unsure about them but they look healthy so don't worry too much.

 

I have charlottes and desiree.

The charlottes are flowering away but the desiree aren't yet.

 

Thank you all! These are Bintje which are an early crop .... I'm tempted to just lift a plant and look-see but hubby won't let me (boo hoo)!! Both daughters' and chums' spuds, although flowering, are only half the size of mine! There's hope yet!

 

Hi Winnie. Like the others have said, don't worry about the flowers, because after all, they're just....well....flowers BTW, had my first spuds of the season today, Arran Pilots, and very nice they were too ! As for lifting a plant, any chance you could scrape away the earth to have a look to see how they're doing ? They're better I think, when they're still small to medium sized.
Cheers...freddy.

 

Maybe they'll flower and maybe they wont. It doesn't matter. When you see the foliage going yellow and dying down they are ready for sure.

 

I am totally reassured by everyone's comments - thank you all!

 

Winnie, you DON`T WANT your spuds flowering. When they do you know the plant is putting all it`s energy into making seeds. And you want tubers, not seed, so when you see a flowerhead forming take it off.:gnthb:

 

Ah .... in that case Dai I'll let my chum and daughter know about this. I didn't know that!!

And Freddy ... I'm very tempted to have a look but I'll wait a bit longer.

 

Winnie have a little feel in the soil where your potatoes are you might just get the surprise of your life. Bob couldn't wait for our spuds to grow either so of course he had a little feel around the earth and we were rewarded with loads of lovely spuds.

We have tried our Rockets and Pentland Javelin so far this season with quite a few more varieties to taste yet! Hel.xxx.

 

never knew that,but there again it would make more sense with all the energy going to the flower instead of where it should be going to :D

 

Hi,
I am growing pots for the first time this year, how do you know when they are ready??

 

If they are planted in compost, or similar, you could have a fumble and see if there are any spuds yet

Failing that flowering is a sign, and if they don't flower (which is not that uncommon) then when they die down the suds are ready.

But, having said that, the joy of "early" spuds is to harvest them at the earliest opportunity to have small, taste, spuds on the plate and waiting for them to flower, or die down, prolongs the agony.