Potatoes!!

[Nick]

Now, according to Mr Titchmarsh in his book about growing your own veg, you should NEVER plant those sprouty spuds you get at the end of a scak of potatoes bought from the market...

Apparently, you should only ever plant seed potatoes bought from a garden centre or seed supplier as these are guaranteed to be disease free.

Well, after having just dug up about 8 kilos of spuds grown from sprouting supermarket potatoes, and only having lost few of them to slugs, worm of careless forking (that's FORKING, Clunk... not a euphemism or Two Ronnies style accent), I'm quite happy to tell Mr Titchmarsh where he can shove his seed potatoes.

[TAKTAK]

Aaah, but, if you do happen to have one diseased potato, it will take out your whole crop.

However, the chances of it are very slim, and we've not had any problems in 18+years of doing it...

[peterb]

Aaah, but, if you do happen to have one diseased potato, it will take out your whole crop.

However, the chances of it are very slim, and we've not had any problems in 18+years of doing it...

As one who's approach to gardening is more akin to slash and burn, (so take this comment in that context) I gather that the danger is not so much that it will ruin the crop, but may also contaminate the ground with disease spores for several growing seasons. (Now - where's the chainsaw....?)

[Steve]

http://www.weebls-stuff.com/toons/Potato/

[shelley bda]

I bet they taste delicious too Nick i've been wanting to grow my own veg at home, as the Children in my after School club have successfully grown potatoes, lettuce and carrots. I did have a strawberry plant, but I killed it when I moved it from pots, next year i'll stick it in it's pot and leave it there lol

Here's our first crop of potatoes me and workmates dug up last week



We were well impressed! I took a picture as the after school club children won't see them otherwise, they might be rotted by the time they come back to school.