Buying seed potatoes signals a new season
The advent of the potato season brings most plotholders out of hibernation. Buying seed potatoes is one of the first excitements of the growing season for me.
Things have changed from when I first had an allotment. Then we clubbed together and bought seed potatoes in two or three kilo bags. Most plotholders grew larger quantities of fewer varieties than today. I get more fun now from a few tubers of ten or more different varieties, from first earlies through to the late maturing Pink Fir Apple.
Our cool damp summers are ideal for growing potatoes and our seed potatoes are famed throughout the world for being free of several destructivediseases. Scienceand Advice for Scottish Agriculture (SASA) sets strict quality standards. Highly specialised and experienced growers supervised by government inspectors make sure that this reputation is upheld.
Many of us will have had our crop affected by scab, slugs and blight but there are some other diseases such as Brown Rot, Ring Rot and Dickeya solani which are almost impossible to remove from the soil once established. To avoid unwittingly introducing these and other diseases, it’s essential to resist the temptation to plant any leftover supermarket table potatoes lurking in the bottom of the fridge. It’s not only your own crop that is at risk but so is that of your neighbours on the allotments and even that of the farmer in a nearby field. Potato tubers labelled as classified seed potatoes with the Safe Haven logo are on sale now in garden centres and these are the only ones we should be planting on our plots.
To improve the chances of a diseasefree crop, it makes sense not to plant potatoes in the same place on the plot every year. Also we should do our best to make sure that all potatoes from the previous year have been dug up although I know how easy it is to miss one or two. Planting potatoes saved from the previous year is a false economy and also increases the risk of the crop being affected by pests and diseases.
Potato Days are taking place all over the country. Some of these Potato Days will have up to 100 different varieties sold by the individual tuber together with a lot of useful advice and information. Even though I go with a list, I’m almost certain to come home with more than I intended. n
It’s essential to resist the temptation to plant any leftover supermarket table potatoes