‘Tater Time

Potatoes are a great staple, despite their current (unfair) reputation in carb-unfriendly circles.

If you cook them in their skins, they contain plenty of nourishment and energy – just don’t over do the cooking processes and additives!

Potatoes are a high yield crop, and now is a good time to plant them. They can be grown in a bag, large pot or half wine barrel if you don’t have a lot of space.

Garden centres and online suppliers sell seed potatoes, which are disease and virus free. They grow well and each seed potato should yield about a kilogram of taties, making them great value for money.

While it’s far too early to be thinking about Christmas dinner, now is the ideal time to plant for a summer crop. If it is still fiercely frosty in your part of the country, mulch your crop well with hay to help prevent frost damage.

Prepare the soil or potting mix with a good quality plant food and plant the potatoes about 25-50cm apart, with the ‘eye’ facing upwards. Cover with about 10 cm of soil or potting mix and water well.

In containers three to five seed potatoes is plenty, half fill the pots with good quality potting mix to allow room for ‘hilling’ the stems as they grow – which is to mound soil around the stems as they grow. You will probably need to do this three or four times until they are ready for harvest.

Water your potatoes as they grow, but allow the soil surface to dry between watering.

Potato harvest is around 15 to 20 weeks after planting. The leafy plants will flower, then as the flowers fade and the leaves begin to turn yellow it’s a signal that your spuds are nearly ready.

The trick is to gently check with your hands around the edges of the soil to gauge the size of the potatoes. Harvest just what you need and leave the rest to grow bigger. If you decide to harvest the whole crop, just brush off the soil and store the spuds unwashed in a cool, dry airy place.