I think some of our seed potatoes have been saved by this blog post. I decided to write this week’s post about how I’ve been contemplating moving our potatoes from the sack they’ve been stored in in the garage to the greenhouse.
I needed a few photos for the post and headed off to the garage to take a couple of pictures ready to write the post. When I looked inside the bag the decision on whether to move them to the greenhouse or not was decided for me. The first bag of seed potatoes was shooting at a rather alarming rate and needed to be moved from the dark conditions of the garage where the sprouts would grow long and leggy, and be of no use at all, to the greenhouse.
As you can see from the photo above the shoots have an incredible knack for growing through and intertwining with the net bags they are sold in.
I thought it might be a bit early to move the potatoes into our cold greenhouse as the weather forecast for the next week or so isn’t all that brilliant. It’s forecast to remain on the cold side but at the moment there aren’t any really frosty nights forecast so hopefully, our potatoes will be okay.
As a precaution, I’ve covered the potatoes with a few layers of fleece to keep them as cosy as possible through any cold nights.
We won’t start planting any potatoes at the allotment until the end of March, at the earliest, although we are planning to start some early Casablanca tubers in tubs in the next few days.
It seems to me that the retailers want to shift their seed potatoes in January whereas the growers don’t really want them until March. Of course you can hold off buying them and run the risk of disappointment. Not really an option is it!
Our local garden centre has its potato day in January. I buy my potatoes from them at a fraction of the cost of online ones. However, I don’t think they get all their varieties for January and some varieties get restocked and others don’t so buying can be a bit of a challenge. Hopefully, we won’t get any more keen frost before planting time.