Kitchen Garden Forum

Got my potatoes today but felt a bit done. Been going to the same garden centre (Riggs) for countless years as everything is 10% off in January so stock up on compost, fertilisers, slug pellets, etc. for the season. Sale signs were up but when I got to the till it was only 25% off Christmas decorations, I suppose I should have checked but a few things would have been better elsewhere. They always sell potatoes in string bags without a weight on them so this year I weighed them, bit odd really about 2¼kg or just short of 5lbs so I don't know what they intended. Got Rocket £3.75 for 26, Charlotte £3.25 for 27 and Picasso £3.75 for 34, they look good but without the discount more expensive than last year. Still beats mail order by a fair margin I suppose.

Robo - you've reminded me of a question I have. When selecting your 'best' seed potatoes to go in the ground, does the size impact quantity of crop? I always assumed 'best' referred to quality?

Pawty. My late Father always said , a seed potato should be the size of a large chickens egg. Coming from a generation where children were seen and not heard, I did not query this.

If in the past you have dug anything out as a result of unintended 'volunteer' potato crop then it would seem that in this instance size really does not matter.

I prefer chicken egg size as well

I use chicken egg sized seed potatoes too... but thats really just because thats what i've always done, and what my family have always done

Dad always said chicken egg size was best, so I've always done the same. Didn't Monty Don experiment using much larger potatoes a year or two ago? I can't remember what the outcome was.

I remember the time he tried the traditionalgrowing method, earthing up etc versus the dig a hole and leave it. He didn't notice much difference between the crops, he used early or first early varieties. Don't remember a size trial.. I'm always mean and chop up a bigger one to give more to plant, am I fooling myself?

As it happened the first bag I filled had big sets in it these I tipped back and choose egg size ones where possible

Having chicken egg sized seed potatoes certainly helps when trying to balance them in egg boxes for chitting! Large ones are much less convenient.

Bean wrote:I'm always mean and chop up a bigger one to give more to plant, am I fooling myself?

As I recall in days long gone by it was quite common to see television gardening presenters cut large seed potatoes in half. They would then coat the freshly cut sides with something in an effort to stop either rot or disease. Cant remember what they coated over with though. Don't watch enough TV nowadays to know if they still suggest it

Never tried it myself as thought the saving was so small, and risk of rot so high, it was better to select a smaller potato to seed

Pa Snip. That brought back memory's of WW2. Unable to get seed potato's my job was to select the largest potato's from the sack that had just started sprouting. Cut the sprouting top about an inch and a half. Seem to recall I then dipped the cut end in lime. [not to certain on that point]

Gerry wrote:Lime it was.

Regards,
Gerry.

Thank-you Gerry.

My Grandmother's second hubby came from a remote area of Canada and recalled that in the twenties and thirties his family would send for their seed potatoes mail order and they came in an envelope... literally just the sprouting eye. But like most I pick a chicken egg size seed potato. Wasn't there something about too big a spud with too many eyes giving lots of smaller spuds?

Motherwoman wrote: Wasn't there something about too big a spud with too many eyes giving lots of smaller spuds?

yes MW quite right.

****

That is why it is suggested that when chitting only a couple of the strongest eyes are allowed to continue to sprout and any other growth should be knocked off.

It does not follow that planting a large potato as seed will produce more, or bigger, potatoes