Kitchen Garden Forum

hi all.... first post newb-ish gardener.

last year grew lots of diff veg quiet well. it was a learning year so wanna grow on it.
now i have sorted the raised beds etc i am about to put together/build a polyshed... i have a garden shed and a load of polycarbonite roofin sheets from a conservatory roof so i'm gonna combine the 2. instead of a 6x4 shed i will open the shed out so the two sides are together and the opposite side be all poly sheets about 9x4 long. the plastic side will face south...
as the sun is just starting to shine and i plan on building this in next couple of weeks i was wondering about starting some of the early potatoes earlier.

my question is this.
is it possible to start them off in the polyshed and then transplant them to a bed when they have got going or am i just better using the polyshed to grow the first lot completely and get other lots up to planting stage etc.
never had a shed or greenhouse ever so unsure of what would stay in there the whole time and what is just brought on to be moved outside later...

thanks alot.

will post a build of the polyshed when doing it (if anyone is interested lol)

cheers

al

I have never heard of anyone transplanting potatoes. I can't see that the method would work so I would use the polyshed to grow them to maturity.

You can grow early potatoes in containers too so you could start some off in a container in your polyshed and then move the container outside at a later stage.

Hi Surferal

A warm welcome to the forum.

I don't know what the general consensus will be about growing under cover, but I am pretty sure that transplanting potatoes is not a good idea. It may be possible, but would certainly interrupt growth and thus make the exercise self-defeating.

Hello Al
In the past I have planted a few seed potato tubers in pots of compost using pots of about 6" to 8" to get them off to an early start. This was instead of chitting them. They were kept in a heated frame until a little top growth appeared then they were carefully planted out without disturbing the root system. It worked well and I got some very early pots.
My advice would be to try several different methods with say half a dozen potatoes in each - this will give you a staggered crop of new potatoes. So often you see long rows of early-type pots all planted at the same time and then all maturing at the same time. New potatoes are at their best when smallish and lifted straight from plot to pot and this is best done by staggering the planting.

Things are different for maincrop potatoes as then you do want the rows to mature together so that they can all be lifted and stored at the same time.

Hope this helps
John

John

I'd certainly be interested in seeing the build process with some pictures.

no problem peter will do... (in growing places yes)

might try a few early's in buckets etc then and then move them out if weather gets better.
looking forward to growing a few bits in the polyshed and see how it turns out...
also have an old tortoise so it will have a bit of space for basking inside etc...

The only method I could see that would work would be to start them off in inside out compost bags in indoors and then when ready, dig a hole same size as bag, cut the bottom of the bag off and gently lower the contents into the whole through the bottom of the bag. This would require great handling skills....

CoMpO