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Aparrently it's an old practice which I've never tried or really heard of but has anyone planted their potatoes in the Autumn before? This is different to second cropping potatoes to be harvested in the Autumn/Winter.
The idea is that you plant them in Autumn/Winter - deeper than you normally plant them and mulched to protect from frost. Next spring they have a head start off and start growing their root system before you can get the first earlies into the ground giving them a head start and producing healthier plants and an earlier crop. Hopefully the weather will be cold enough to knock back any slugs and the seed potatoes won't rot in the ground.
When you consider how volunteer spuds can come back from the smallest tuber missed in the harvest, it might be worth a punt with some larger tubers from the second crop spuds I have in at the minute.
Browsing on tinternet I came up with this website which peaked my interest and there's and old thread that mentions it but didn't go into much depth.
If you've tried it what were your results? What varieties did you use? When did you plant them?
Strange isn't - in previous years I wasn't really bothered about growing spuds. This year I've had first earlies, early main crop, maincrop, second crop and I'm contemplating planting out some more for next year already.
The idea is that you plant them in Autumn/Winter - deeper than you normally plant them and mulched to protect from frost. Next spring they have a head start off and start growing their root system before you can get the first earlies into the ground giving them a head start and producing healthier plants and an earlier crop. Hopefully the weather will be cold enough to knock back any slugs and the seed potatoes won't rot in the ground.
When you consider how volunteer spuds can come back from the smallest tuber missed in the harvest, it might be worth a punt with some larger tubers from the second crop spuds I have in at the minute.
Browsing on tinternet I came up with this website which peaked my interest and there's and old thread that mentions it but didn't go into much depth.
If you've tried it what were your results? What varieties did you use? When did you plant them?
Strange isn't - in previous years I wasn't really bothered about growing spuds. This year I've had first earlies, early main crop, maincrop, second crop and I'm contemplating planting out some more for next year already.
Once was enough for me.
More bother than they were worth.
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