Growing and Harvesting Backyard Potatoes

Growing and Harvesting Backyard Potatoes

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This year I reduced the space for potatoes on my allotment, as they have been badly hit by blight for the last three years.

Then - as luck would have it - 2017 has been a blight free year, with a really good crop. I wish I'd planted twice as many. Such is allotment growing.

Every year I also plant up a bag of potatoes in my back garden / yard. These tend to be less prone to blight and generally deliver a good crop.

They are grown in a big plastic bag - bought from Poundland. I put about 8 inches of compost in the bottom, place a couple of seed potatoes on top, then add more compost to cover, about another 6 inches.

The potatoes sprout after three weeks or so. Once the green growth is six inches tall I earth up with more compost. I then continue to earth up every week or so as the plants grow and until the bag is full.

This year (2017) I grew first-earlies - Pentland Javelin. They were ready to harvest by early July - but they were still growing on well, so I left them to grown on, hoping for a bigger crop.

I cut back some of the foliage - and they still kept growing! Also - no signs of blight. I finally dug them out this week - as my store of spuds harvested from my allotment in June and July had started to run out.

As you can see - a really good harvest. So - "Backyard Potatoes" are well worth growing, particularly if you only have limited space - a small yard or even just a balcony will do.