Medwyn Williams says get your potatoes started now
Get them going in polythene bags now before planting outdoors in May
Iplanted up my potatoes for the Malvern Show a week ago, but there’s still plenty of time left for you to get them in. Most show-winning potatoes are either first early or second early varieties, which means they’ll be ready within nine to 12 weeks. The earliest would usually be ‘Casablanca’ and ‘Winston’. You have to be careful they don’t grow too large, so check the bags at nine weeks for size.
I grow six varieties for my display and, to make sure that I’ve a minimum of 40 potatoes to fill each basket, I’ll plant 20 polythene bags of each variety.
As the object is to have a display with as many different colours as possible, I grow two predominantly for their skin colour. ‘Red Chieftain’ has bright red skin with white flesh, while ‘Purple Majesty’ has purple skin and a vivid bright purple flesh. I also plant ‘Blue Belle’, ‘Bonnie’, ‘Winston’ and ‘Bute’. The latter is a potato I introduced in 2014 and is perfect for displays as it retains its white colour – even after four days exposed to daylight.
I grow the potatoes in 20 litre black polythene bags using my own compost prepared for me by Levington. It’s very finely sieved and organically based with sufficient nutrients to maintain good growth, and produces potatoes with a clean skin finish. I put about 7.5cm (3in) of compost in the bottom and then position the potato in the centre and fill with compost to within 2.5cm (1in) from the top. I give the bags a thorough watering and leave in the polytunnel until the haulms are well through.
During May, I take the potatoes outdoors and plant them up (polythene bags and all) in two rows in trenches about 10cm (4in) deep. Before laying out the bags in the trench I work some 6:10:10 potato fertiliser into the soil.
Once the potatoes are growing away well, I wrap some plastic barrier material around them, which helps to support the haulms when they’re fully grown.