Christmas Potatoes Experiment

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Sleigh bells ring, are you listening? In the lane snow is glistening………. By the time you read this dear reader Christmas will be but 15-weeks or so away. Aside from Bing Crosby on the radio, the goodwill to all men, family gatherings, presents under the tree and general feeling of joy that Yuletide brings, there is one thing that matters at Christmas time - a really good roast potato! 

I am experimenting with growing potatoes for Christmas dinner this year, not as I would usually growing through the spring and summer harvesting in autumn and storing in hessian sacks until needed, but by planting in August to actually harvest in December. I have some Maris Piper seed potatoes, the best for roast spuds, and have thus far basically treated them exactly as I would if sowing in March, left them on a windowsill to chit for a few weeks before planting, except I sowed the tubers into 30-litre pots during the first week of August. I wouldn’t usually recommend growing main crop potatoes in pots or tubs, but it is a must for Christmas harvests. A few inches of compost were added to each of the 30-litre pots and then three seed potatoes were placed in each. These were covered in a further few inches of compost. They are being well watered and as the foliage begins to show above the compost more compost is added to the container to keep covering the foliage until eventually you reach the top of the pot. The pots will be situated on the vegetable patch through late summer and early autumn but will have to move undercover before the chilly nights of autumn when they will be moved into the Greenhouse for protection from cold nights and as such be frost-free as the season progresses into winter; potato foliage would be damaged by frost. I have been successful in the past growing carrots in pots for winter use overwintering them in the Greenhouse so hopefully this particular experiment will prove successful, and I will have one less item on the shopping list come December, that or I will be doing a mad dash to the Greengrocers on Christmas Eve! I will keep you posted as to the results, good or bad. 
Cheers 🍺


Location: London Borough of Havering, UK

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