Selfsufficientish.com

Hi, quick question. How many seeds potatoes do you think I might need to put in to feed three adults and two children potatoes a few times a week for most of the year? My mate whos a mum of two has just started sharing my allotment with me (shes skint and wants to be able to give her kids fresh veg). I can't quite remember what I put in last year but it fed partner and I until recently. We seem to have over 70 desiree, 16 maris piper and 16 king eddies as well as three 6 ft rows of earlies (charlottes). Do you think this will be enough? thanks!

Hi,
We ran out of our last lot of 2010 pots last week - I remember we had exactly 70, spread accross earlies to maincrops, and there are 2 of us. Never underestimate how many you will need!

We're on our last bag of maincrops so 2 of us have been eating our spuds since last June. I think I had about 65 plants of 1st, 2nd and maincrops. I'm very pleased as it was the first year I have grown maincrops and they've lasted 7.5 months so far.

I can tell you exactly how many spuds I planted last year, cos I made a note for future reference.

I planted 42 first earlies, 28 early maincrop, 84 maincrop and 14 salad potatoes. That has provided potatoes for the two of us nearly every day since 1st June and I still have plenty to last until the earlies start again, plus I gave half a bagful to my daughter.
Hope that helps (or confuses )

I'm not making any jokes about where you live and eating potatoes.

But that's a lot of spuds for 2 people.

Millymollymandy wrote:that's a lot of spuds for 2 people.

Yeah well, I did say that we eat them nearly every day.
We don't eat much rice or pasta, only on rare occasions, mainly because I'm not really that keen on rice and pasta, but also it's a lot cheaper to eat my own spuds.

Nothing to add, I just want to congratulate everyone who's keeping decent records! I'm pretty good at keeping records for brewing, but I'm lousy at the allotment... Must try harder!

Thanks for the replies! That settles it them, might be buying another bag of tatties, I've got space to squeeze some in, plus my mate can also grow in buckets in her tiny back yard.

Odsox wrote:

Millymollymandy wrote:that's a lot of spuds for 2 people.

Yeah well, I did say that we eat them nearly every day.
We don't eat much rice or pasta, only on rare occasions, mainly because I'm not really that keen on rice and pasta, but also it's a lot cheaper to eat my own spuds.

Yeah I thought about that after I posted but couldn't remember whether it was you or Graham Hobbs who wasn't a fan of pasta or rice.

I am going to plant more than usual only because I have 4 varieties this year (our garden centre gives us freebies with our fidelity card). I didn't really want them so I will plant just a few; and also I could only get a big bag of Delice with about 68 inside instead of the bag of 25 that I really wanted.

So some of the chitted spuds are going to get chucked as I've got about 150 altogether!

A related question - I was told that you can successfully slice seed potatoes in two to double the crop - does anyone do this?

Does it work or introduce risk of disease or what? Do you slice them at chitting stage or as they go in?

dave45 wrote:A related question - I was told that you can successfully slice seed potatoes in two to double the crop - does anyone do this?

Does it work or introduce risk of disease or what? Do you slice them at chitting stage or as they go in?

I did it last year, I think it's probably best if you use a bigger potato with two or more eyes and make sure there's an eye on each piece. I cut them a few days before they went in and they grew ok.