Butternut Question this time

[newatallthis]

Ok, this might sound a bit silly, but where are my butternut squash going to come from? do they flower and then grow from that? or do they come off the stalk?

Is one Sweetcorn plant enough or do I need two?

I would also like to ask some questions about potatoes, I am thinking of seeding some of our shop brought Maris Piper potatoes the question I have is how many should I plant, to gain enough for my family of 2 and small person? when would they grow? is it to early, too late to plant to get anything from them?

Your help much appreciated.

[Carole B.]

Hi Newatallthis,your butternut squashes will appear as very small versions behind a flower,there will also be flowers without this small version,these will be the male flowers needed to pollinate the females,just leave them to get on with it by themselves and the small fruits will grow.
With sweetcorn you really need about a dozen plants as you only get 1 or 2 per plant and they should be planted in a block to give better pollination otherwise the kernals on the cobs can be a bit hit and miss.
I think with the spuds you are really too late and would be better off using the crop space for something like french beans which will still give you a decent crop sown now.Hope this helps.

[newatallthis]

many thanks for that Carol, will do swapping around, and will leave the potatos for now. When is a good time to start potatoes?

[sprout]

I think with the spuds you are really too late.

I would have said the same until last year Carole, when a veteran plotholder gave me some red spuds in July to plant 'for christmas' (I'd just taken on the plot in May and had plenty of space to experiment). Although a bit dubious (the chits were as long as your arm ), sure enough I got lovely spuds in November, fresh out of the ground. This year he's offering me Picasso and I'm taking him up again

[newatallthis]

Ok Sprout, so its possibly not too late to plant out the spuds? worth a try?
If I decide to plant them and see, how many seeded spuds should I plant to get some back?

newatallthis

[vivie veg]

Hi Newatallthis,

You should get back about 6 to 10 times more potatoes than you plant..given the right conditions, watering, lack of disease etc. Only you know how much your family eats, but say 2kg per week, then for a year you would need 104kg so you would need about 17kg of seed potato. However this would need about 40 square meters of ground, eg 4m x 10m.

May I suggest that you would be better off trying a few (3 potatoes) in a 20 litre container, just to see what it's like before you go in to full production next year.

Also Maris piper is a maincrop potato and takes upto 20 weeks from planting to harvesting. May I suggest you would be better off with an early variety, eg any of the 'new' potatoes in the shops now. On the other hand, you could plant any potato you have that are 'chitting' (producing roots) and see what happens. Generally you can get new potatoes when the flowers have dropped off the plants or left for longer the potatoes will be bigger.

Try getting hold of a good all round book on veg growing, eg The vegetable expert by Dr D.G. Hessayon

or try doing a google search for each veg.

Good luck

[Ian F]

It all depends on what sort they are ( eg First Earlies, Second Earlies, Maincrop etc), but for Maincrop I always follow my Dad's advice, and plant on Good Friday. Don't know why it works, but it seems to.

There is good advice on when to plant the different types of potatoes in the catalogues, such as Marshalls.

[Tigger]

Another useful source of advice can be found on the &M website as they produce guides on all veg/fruit/flowers.