After the Beast from the East parts 1 and 2, and despite there being rumours of part 3 to come, we managed to plant all our potatoes on Saturday 24th March. This is probably the latest we've ever planted potatoes, and possibly the coldest wettest conditions too - the ground was so wet that the tractor would only pull the potato planter through it when going downhill, even though the incline is very slight.
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| Mateo and Mathis on the potato planter, fully loaded and ready to go (downhill!). |
This year we decided to only plant first (Casablanca and Colleen) and second (Maris Peer) earlies, plus Charlotte salad potatoes, although we have done a single line of our own saved Sarpo Mira blight-tolerant maincrops. This was to save money on our seed potato bill, and because we don't have a functioning potato lifter, so that all our potatoes have to be dug by hand. We plan to buy local organic maincrop potatoes in bulk later in the season.
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| 26 lines of 5 varieties of potatoes planted, taking 3 people most of one day. |
At the moment we are still digging up three varieties of potato planted this time last year - Valor, Ambo and Sarpo Mira. The longer they are in the ground though the more slug and eel-worm damage they sustain, and the recent heavy frosts have also damaged some.
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