Sneaky Peak at My Potatoes

Posted on 29. Jul, 2011 by Tracey in Veg Plot

Any vegetables that grow underground haven’t got a chance of staying covered when I’m around. I can’t help myself, I just have to take a sneaky peak to see how they are doing.

I think this stems from my childhood, as we (me and my sister) were always told not to touch the christmas presents under the tree by my parents but of course when we were told not to do something, we would inevitably do it.

I haven’t grown out of this, I know I’m not supposed to disturb the carrots and potatoes but it would be no fun if I didn’t know what they looked like half way through and I wouldn’t be able to write about it either. Of course there’s no hard rules to gardening either which I like, I just (try) to work it out as I go along.

It’s the same with carrots, parsnip, radishes, beetroot and potatoes, I have to keep checking on them from time to time. Probably thinking on it now, it might not have been a good idea to grow jacket potatoes, the type of potatoes that take the longest amount of time to grow in the soil without disturbance. If I keep taking samples, there won’t be any left! I’ll have to resist.

Growing Jacket Potatoes

I have never grown jacket sized potatoes before, the largest I’ve grown was Desiree, good sized roasting potatoes from the plastic bucket type pots from Suttons Seeds.

In my logical thought pattern, I’ve convinced myself that to get bigger sized spuds, all I need is a bigger pot, in my case an ex-compost timber slatted bin and to leave the potatoes in the ground for longer (Very scientific I know, I knew my Environmental Science degree would come in handy one day).

Marfona Baby Potatoes

My Marfona potato plants flowered in early July, which was a bit worrying as (due to popular belief) this means your potatoes are nearly ready, however this is a misconception as some potatoes don’t even have flowers. As Marfona are a maincrop potato, they shouldn’t be harvested until Late September so they have a while to go yet and its a good job too as look at the size of them! They definitely need more growing time.

As with all gardeners I’m hoping for the best, fingers crossed.