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Autumn planted potatoes

JesseDJesseD Posts: 22
in Fruit & veg
I’ve planted potatoes in containers (mid-Sept) anticipating these will be ready to harvest from late November or December. However it’s been very windy and some stems have snapped, others have blackened leaves. Presumably from the wind? Any ideas as to whether these will still produce potatoes or, where the stems have snapped will these stop
growing. 

Posts

  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Central Norfolk UKPosts: 66,182
    edited November 2020
    Potatoes are not frost hardy and don't like our winter weather ... blackened leaves sounds like frost /weather damage.  If the foliage is killed the potatoes will not produce more tubers.  If I wanted to grow new potatoes for Cbristmas I would grow them in containers in a frostfree greenhouse. 

    There's a reason why UK farmers do not grow potatoes in the winter and why we look forward to new potatoes in the spring  :) Potatoes originate from much nearer to the equator  :)
    “I am not lost, for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.” Winnie the Pooh







  • JesseDJesseD Posts: 22
    Thank thank you, I have a very tiny greenhouse and will try to squeeze them in 😊
  • strelitzia32strelitzia32 Posts: 767
    Dovefromabove said:
    Potatoes are not frost hardy and don't like our winter weather [...]
    There's a reason why UK farmers do not grow potatoes in the winter and why we look forward to new potatoes in the spring
    ...and yet many garden centers sell "seed potatoes for Christmas" with no acknowledgement of this at all! Always makes me wonder how they manage to keep selling them.

    They should go in the spray-painted heather aisle....
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Central Norfolk UKPosts: 66,182
    Probably because  gardening programmes and magazines have been telling us how to do it since I remember Percy Thrower doing it back in the 60s ... 

    https://www.gardenersworld.com/how-to/grow-plants/how-to-grow-potatoes-for-christmas/


    https://www.theenglishgarden.co.uk/expert-advice/gardeners-tips/how-to-plant-potatoes-for-a-christmas-harvest/

    The GCs probably assume we know ... after all, they rarely issue instructions with potatoes earlier in the year either. 



    “I am not lost, for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.” Winnie the Pooh







  • pclark42pclark42 Frolesworth, EnglandPosts: 92
    Dovefromabove. ah ah ah you must be my vintage...Percy Thrower brilliant.
  • DovefromaboveDovefromabove Central Norfolk UKPosts: 66,182
    I was only knee high to a grasshopper back then tho’ @pclark42 😉 
    “I am not lost, for I know where I am. But however, where I am may be lost.” Winnie the Pooh







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