[Bex]

So, I have just found some potatoes well past the eating stage and growing strong shoots which have been hiding at the back of the cupboard.

I hate to chuck them so I want to try planting them.

I'll be doing it in big tubs of compost.

Any tips and advice? When do you think they'll be ready? If indeed they grow at all.

 

[Fleecewife]

If the shoots are long, spindly and pale, you will need to be really careful not to snap them off, especially when planting them.  When they will be ready depends on the variety, which you perhaps don't remember.  Keep them well watered, and once the flowers have died down, take a peep underneath for tubers, without disturbing the plants themselves.  No reason they won't grow and crop. 

[Anke]

If they are maincrop (and most likely they are) watch out for potato blight...

[Bex]

Thanks guys. Off to get some compost today - don't have my own heap yet 

I was thinking, I'm pretty sure we have rats here about. Would they pose a problem? Do they like potatoes?

[Jukes Mum]

this is the first year we have bought and planted actual seed potatoes. In the past we have always just planted supermarket ones with great success. You might not get as many as you would expect from seed potatoes but they are very nice :-)
Not sure about the rats. Pop some traps down and cover with a sturdy tunnel so your dogs can't get to them. You can put a couple of sticks across the entrance too so hedgehogs can't get in.

[MarkD]

Worth a try. I often get potatoes sprouting in my compost heap from old potatoes that have sprouted which make for a nice freebie.

[Lesley Silvester]

I have a raised bed full of potatoes growing for the second year without any being planted. The bed was filled with the contents of the manure/compost bin so I assume that there was some potato peel in there. I had some lovely spuds last year so think I should get the same this year.

[pgkevet]

Just lifted my first first early.. expected to need 2 plants for a meal for OH and me.... but the one plant will do for 2-3 meals!! darned if i can remember what variety.
Main crop plants look twice the size of the first early plants already.

[cloddopper]

Thanks guys. Off to get some compost today - don't have my own heap yet 

I was thinking, I'm pretty sure we have rats here about. Would they pose a problem? Do they like potatoes?

If the rats are hungry and there are spuds accessible they will eat and contaminate  a tremendous amount.
 As a kid in the 1950's we had 40 yard long potato graves or clamps as some folk know them the graves stood over six feet tall at the apex.
 I think 1954 was a heck of a year for bad weather  with massive amounts of snow . Where we lived in Lincolnshire the snow was a good two feet deep on some of the flattest land in the UK .
 
Dad was a land worker , in the Feb they had to open up some of the graves to riddle extra potatoes for sale in the shops as most had run out of edible greens and carrots . The root crops were being dug out the ground with pneumatic hammers as it was frozen solid to a  depth of over a foot deep .
 
I remember Dad coming home after dark and saying to mum , " I'll be needing my ratlings tomorrow  Mabs , there's hundreds of rats in the grave eating no end of potatoes . This morning Vic Lunn had a rat run up his trousers leg and got bitten on his **** " .

 Ratlins were  a local name for " Rat lines " ... 24 inch long hemp cords or binder band used to tie the trousers and jackets at the knee or just above the wrist when working in rat infested places such as corn stacks , potato graves or in the granary where the 18 stone bags of corn were stored till the miller brought them or the farmer  wanted them for feedstuffs .