The wrong sort of potato leaf

Ordinarily I’d be really pleased to see new potato foliage …… but not in my carrot bed!!!!!

You could be forgiven for thinking that for a vegetable gardener, the sight of the first potato leaves of the year, sitting happily in the lovingly prepared beds, would be a reason for joy, for celebration, not to mention relief that the carefully planted seed tubers hadn’t rotten away, unseen, deep underground but had been quietly doing their thing before bursting out into the light of day. So you may be surprised to learn that this was not my reaction when, last weekend, with the sun warm and bright, I headed off down to my vegetable patch, clutching carrot and parsnip seeds, only to find that not only had the local weed population decided to take full advantage of the recently enriched soil but proudly sitting in the carrot bed, brazen as you like, were little clumps of potato leaves!

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The school garden revisited

Little Mudlet proved adept at using my onion spacing tools

Having ignored the school garden for most of the autumn/winter, the last couple of weeks before the Easter break proved quite challenging, with my dedicated little gardeners regularly asking when Gardening Club was starting again. To be honest, up until then I had still been in two minds whether or not I wanted to invest more of my time in a project that seemed to be lacking support in almost all quarters. However, over the last couple of weeks, I have begun to feel that my band of gardeners deserve to have their enthusiasm recognised and so on Wednesday, Little Mudlet and I went to the garden and set about weeding the beds I needed for onions, potatoes and parsnips …… preparing for Gardening Club.

A Gardeners Mothers Day

Puzzles and seeds

Mothers Day in Mudville over recent years, has involved hints about gardening related gift suggestions, usually along the lines of seeds, gardening gloves, seed compost etc and this year was no exception and I was thrilled to received King Edward and Duke of York seed potatoes. I had been dropping not so subtle hints about my kings most of last week and so to receive two bags of kings and a bag of dukes was a bonus, even if I now have a problem in terms of space. You see, with all of the available downstairs and one of the upstairs windowsills, already home to propagators, availability for egg box lids full of seed potatoes, was severely limited.

Potato, Albert Bartlett Rooster

This is a record the development of this set of seed potatoes, from chitting to planting out and beyond. I hope this will prove useful.

Variety: Rooster
Set to chit indoors: 29th January 2014
First sprouting: 3rd February 2014
Time taken: 5 days

I bought a 2kg sack of Albert Bartlett Rooster seed potatoes from a shop in town, gave half to a grower friend for her birthday and set the remainder to chit, using the bottom half of a large egg box, on the dining room window.

Sitting snugly in an egg box on the dining room windowsill

Potato, King Edward

This is a record of how long these seed potatoes took to appear after planting and how they looked at various stages from first appearance to harvest. I hope this will prove useful.

Variety: King Edward
Planted: 12th April 2013
First Appearance: 4th May 2013
Time taken: 23 days

I chit my seed potatoes in an egg box on a windowsill before planting them out.