Charlotte & other spuds questions.

[retropants]

Wow, they look great, I'd love a poly tunnel, but money, space etc....

[Ricard with an H]

I just bought Pembrokeshire new potatoes, not for the first time and I wasn't impressed this second time. Pearly white and lacking in taste compared to my favourites. I also bought Mallocan new potatoes and very quickly turned them into papas aruggados. Boiled in heavy salted water and allowed to cool and dry until the salt crystals form on the outer skin then served with very strong garlic/chilli/pepper sauce called Mojo-Rogo.

Mostly found in the Canaries but I'm hoping for a find in Mallorca next week.

[WestHamRon]

I just bought Pembrokeshire new potatoes, not for the first time and I wasn't impressed this second time. Pearly white and lacking in taste compared to my favourites. I also bought Mallocan new potatoes and very quickly turned them into papas aruggados. Boiled in heavy salted water and allowed to cool and dry until the salt crystals form on the outer skin then served with very strong garlic/chilli/pepper sauce called Mojo-Rogo.

Mostly found in the Canaries but I'm hoping for a find in Mallorca next week.

Exquisite, aren't they ?

[Ricard with an H]

What I found on Mallorca was small Maris Peer, washed and bagged for the mass market. Nice, but I do like a bit of soil.

A photo for you spud growers in the hope of some help, remember I sowed two rows of potatoes ? I row was of some old Charlotte that had sprouted, the other row was of bought-in PFA seed potatoes.

On the right you see a healthy growth of PFA, on the left you see a 60% loss of the Charlotte I planted.

Is this a reason to only buy seed potatoes ? I grow garlic from garlic I grew that had been grown from garlic.

Maybe this is just a moody, I have grown accustomed to plants throwing a moody though I accept it's something I did wrong or didn't quite get right for that particular plant.

Charlotte is moody, yes ? Hmmmm, no surprise there.

[oldherbaceous]

The Charlotte loses are probably something to do with whatever they spray them with, while they are in storage. They were talking about it on the radio the other morning, but i missed what the spray was....

[Ricard with an H]

Thanks for the pointer OH, just another reason to not buy potatoes and if I have to they will have soil on them rather than tidy clean skins and being concerned about how they were treated.

I probably planted the two rows a little too close together anyway.

I now have to find a space for another planting and it may be at the expense of outdoor tomatoes along the lines of James Wong.

In the last year I increased my raised beds area by 70% and I'm still short of growing space unless I co-opt more paddock space though it won't be a raised bed. If I decide on this I have an area of very fertile soil on the basis the grasses grow twice as fast and twice as tall, I'll cover this area with a tarpaulin until next spring then hire a machine, or is it worth buying a machine ?

[Geoff]

Does seem a bit strange that you have got gaps if they were all shooting when you planted them and you didn't break the shoots off. What do you find if you investigate?

[Ricard with an H]

Ok Geoff, I'm dying to investigate so I'll dig the middle bit up. Maybe plant some PFA seeds if the Charlotte are rotted.

[Ricard with an H]

What I found was two strong shoots that had been chewed-off below the soil surface and the tubers that they had grown from though my digging had broken the shoot off the potato tuber.

I found evidence of mole tunnels though they were deeper than the tuber, wireworms are in my soil. Is this the work of wireworms ?

[Geoff]

I suspect slugs. I've never grown from long shooted stored potatoes but I don't see why they should pick on them and leave the normal seed potatoes alone. Perhaps someone else has tried and might have more idea.

[Ricard with an H]

Slugs eh ?

I have zero experience of slugs working underground though I did start raking -in slug pellets rather than just laying them on the soil.

I'll keep you informed of progress or otherwise, the PFA look strong right now and have pushed through several
Layers of heaping up earth.

When I dug down to find the evidence I was amazed how dry the soil was around the tubers and I have been watering. I was away for a week though a neighbour came to water at least twice.

Very dry here, I've been watering all day even though none of the top growth looks desperate.

[Geoff]

As I said above, this is my first year of growing Lady Christl, does she normally play silly buggers?

[Blackbob]

10 year ago I had 2 full rows of Maris piper wiped out when I harvested.
long rows with 36 plants in each.
thought I'd do the easy route and plant on the flat then ridge up with well rotted muck as they grew.
around 2 tonne of muck applied over the growing season to get a good haulm. They looked fantastic until the day of lifting.
I was gutted to see huge spuds riddled with chunks out of them and bacterial infections happy and growing. Honestly it looked like a load of rats had taken up residence in the bed, tunnels everywhere.
Turned out the muck I had used was riddled with brandling worms and the moles moved in to take advantage. They destroyed the crop but created an opportunity which still sustains me and my family today.
I'm now and have been for 7 year a professional mole catcher both private and commercial.

[Pa Snip]

As I said above, this is my first year of growing Lady Christl, does she normally play silly buggers?

Never had Lady ChristL do that Geoff, nor have we experienced them being that sort of weight after just 12 weeks

Dug our first Lady ChristL recently

IMG_2221.JPG (166.44 KiB) Viewed 3052 times

[Ricard with an H]

Even though I'm excited about my first crop of PFR they taste almost identical to Charlotte though I didn't do a side-by-side taste-test, just from memory. Also, I was surprised I had a crop within two months from planting.

Right now they are at the size I like to eat them though that depends on taste as they get bigger and I don't have previous experience.