Tuesday 14 February 2012

Disaster strikes!


I am devastated. My seed potatoes which I thought were in a frost free place got attacked by frost over the weekend.  It must have been the -9 we had on Saturday night but all my 10 variety’s growing for my potato experiment have all fallen fowl in some way. The worst of was my Ryecroft purple I lost 5 of them. All those that know about my potato trial will be aware that I had 9 different varieties from JBA seed potatoes all with just 10 tubers so when I lose 5 out of 10 that’s a big loss. All in all I lost 27 out of the 90 I had so I can still work with that but I am going to have to buy a few more to add to my stock so I have some substantial crops.

This is my 7th year growing potatoes and it’s the first time I have ever had this problem. May be because I am using such old variety’s they need more attention…oh well that’s gardening for you! You win some and you lose some.

6 comments:

  1. It has been very cold. It's perhaps worth covering them with newspaper if a frost is forecast again.

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  2. What a shame - if you have been to Martyn's blog you'll know ours have just been taken back out of the garage. I'd take Jo's advice.

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  3. Oh no!!! Though minus 9 is extremely cold. Mine are near the window in an unheated room (along with the ripening winter pears) so hopefully totally frost-free. At least you didn't lose the entirety of 1 variety.

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  4. Oh no! That is not good at all!

    We keep ours in the house in a spare room so no frost damage for us!

    Hope you still get a harvest come the time.

    Martin

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  5. That happened to me last year when I kept them in the greenhouse - I didn't lose them all fortunately, this year they are in the kitchen, which is probably a bit too warm. There is still plenty of time to get some more chitted.

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  6. Gosh, that's a shame. The weather has been extreme :/

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