It's strange, we always seem to plant potatoes in the spring.
Every year we get potatoes that have been left in from last year coming
up before those we plant, so why don't we plant them in the Autumn?
Discuss.
David @ the damp end of Swansea Bay.

David Hill wrote:
It's strange, we always seem to plant potatoes in the spring.
Every year we get potatoes that have been left in from last year coming
up before those we plant, so why don't we plant them in the Autumn?
Discuss.

Presumably because if the foliage comes up too early, it'll get frost
damaged. Which happened to a lot of our allotmenters a year or two
back when there was a very late frost.

In article ,
Martin wrote:
On Mon, 01 Oct 2012 10:22:58 +0100, David Hill
wrote:

It's strange, we always seem to plant potatoes in the spring.
Every year we get potatoes that have been left in from last year coming
up before those we plant,

but what percentage survived long enough to do that?

so why don't we plant them in the Autumn?

The earlier you plant them the higher the probability that something
nasty will happen to them.

Yes. People have already mentioned early frost and wet, but here
the ground fairly often freezes to a couple of inches down. So
there are three good reasons not to - except, of course, in places
like Jersey.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.

"David Hill" wrote in message
...
It's strange, we always seem to plant potatoes in the spring.
Every year we get potatoes that have been left in from last year coming up
before those we plant, so why don't we plant them in the Autumn?
Discuss.
David @ the damp end of Swansea Bay.

This year I attempted to grow spuds in containers (plastic dustbins suitably
drilled for drainage). The results were unsatisfactory - got a good number
of potatoes, but all very small :-(

Bill

We're on our very first potato planting exploration this year. I've made a sort of brick planter with the remnants of some old patio. We only have a very small garden so vertically was the only way to go. We'll see how it goes!