Really poor potato harvest

[womble]

Don't give up yet, work out what you've done wrong and keep trying.

For a start I don't weigh my harvest, I'm just happy with what I get, sometimes it works better than others. Tbh I've no idea if your harvest is good or not.

Did you have alot of foliage? Because your watering and feeding regime does sound quite heavy.

[teakdesk]

Colleen are a first early variety - which give an early, but low, yield of nice tasting potatoes.

They should only need about 8 to 10 weeks growth so you could have lifted them in early June for better flavour.

If you want a bigger yield then you need to use a potato that has a longer growth period.

[Bramble_killer]

bet I can win over the poor yield. We grew 5 kestrel seed potatoes and lifted them at the weekend. I got 1kg of potatoes!

It would have been cheaper to buy them.

[BUFFS]

for anyone near the coast,put your pots on a bed of 3ins seaweed,i was put onto this some years ago and the yeild was much better..and the taste..

[rogesse]

I think I may have to challenge you Bramble Killer - how does 3 piddly potatoes per plant sound, I don't think it was even worth planting them!

[Bigmallly]

I've had the same results with Rocket, Pentland Javelin & Maris Piper (very poor yield). I still have some Maris Piper in sacks & King Edwards in a bed but I plan to leave them till all the foliage had died back.

[geoff]

I, too have had a poorer yield this year from my potatoes, mainly charlottes. I think the explanation is that during the growing season it was very dry, so they didn't produce many tubers, and most were very small, even for a salad variety.
Potatoes have a growing cycle, so even if it's rained a lot recently the spuds can't use it as they have already started to die back
A similar problem has happened with my onions;they have grown, but most are quite small
Even if you water them you need to put down a lot of water with a pipe or can. One of the Wise Old Men on my allotments summed it up - watering will keep things alive, but to grow properly you need rain

[chris]

What is classed as a decent harvest? I got 2.2Kg from 4 rooster seed spuds - I didn't water them enough and the tops died down, so decided to pull them last night... Loads in there, not massive in size, probably around snooker ball size, all different shades of red but definately my best harvest yet.

[kentvegplot]

My earlies were pretty poor too - Homeguard particularly. The rest of my path is 'Nicola' which is either treated as a second early or early main - either way, from my 'furtling' they already look much better than the first earlies.

It has been very dry in this part of the country, and rather cold when the firsts really needed some warmth so I blame the weather...

[Veggiemama]

I have had a good crop from my potatoes this year. I have grown them in bags.
Ulster prince and Ulster chieftans....lovely potatoes.

I gently lifted them from the bag(with the help of Oh) took out all that was ready and put them back in again. I have had another harvest from them too, doing the same thing.
They are now back in for a third time. There are still plenty of baby potatoes growing so i will keep doing this until they are done.

I also have my charlotte potatoes nearly ready and have planted mairs pipers ( i think) and roosters for after the charlottes.

You have to be very gently when removing them as to not break the foilage.

Dont give up, maybe try a different variety next time, but keep going with it....i think it is definately worth it.

VM

[willie5094]

Poor potato crop

I have just harvested a potato growing bag (charlotte) with only 8 potatoes, where did I go wrong. Any help much appreciated.

[SarzWix]

Lots of folks having poor potato harvests this year Willie, so I've put the threads all together. Might help you if you have a read through the others

[frogga]

Some of our potato plants are very very poor,however some are producing lots, 1 plant dug this afternoon had 1.8kg of potato, others are less than 500 grams..

[salilah]

I have put upside down tonic water bottles in the bags - to see if I can get at least some of the weekly watering down inside rather than down the edges - looking at the foliage its not working that well :-(

Oh well, the ones we get do taste nice!! and other garden stuff is enjoying the heat (e.g. courgettes)
S

[hamster]

Tonight have dug last of my charlottes up and had a very pleasing 5.5lb,that takes me to 23lbs off 6 plants, the thing that perhaps helped was lots of home made compost. If you read this and are disappointed, don't give up, last year mine were awful. I also put grass clippings round when earthing up, dont know if that was good or not when i dug, the soil underneath the grass was like dust. I also had some scab. Only got 2 titchy cucumbers, they might be ready for the olympics in 2012!