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Is it Too Late to Plant Valor Potatoes?
By Greg | June 19, 2007
I know it’s traditional to plant potatoes around Easter, but this year I didn’t manage to get any seed potatoes before they were all sold out. So last weekend I took some Valor potatoes from the supermarket and stuck them in a bag of compost. Will it work, or is it too late?
I remember reading somewhere that there was going to a shortage of seed potatoes in the UK this year. I have no idea why, but the prediction seems to have come true. I looked around for some Duke of Yorks around Easter time, and there were none to be found. There were other varieties available, but I held out for Duke of York; unfortunately, by the time I concluded there were none available (unless I wanted to buy 25 kg at a time online), there were no other seed potatoes of any kind to be found!
So, I pretty much gave up on them this year…until I noticed that a bag of organic Valor potatoes that we’d bought for the start of our baby’s weaning was starting to sprout. Apparently Valors are among the last potatoes to sprout in the Spring, so I thought why not? It’s mid-June, but I’ll put them in a bag of compost and see what happens.
Will it work?
And what’s this about planting them in a bag of compost? It’s true, it is possible to grow potatoes in a bag of compost — it’s easy, in fact! Last year I did some Duke of Yorks that way and had a great yield. (I also planted some King Edward quite late in the year and got only a few.) If you live in an area where you don’t want to dedicate a big patch of open ground to growing potatoes — and then digging them up again at the end of the year — here’s how you can do it…
I just take an old compost bag, roll down the edges so it’s only a foot or so high, and fill it with compost. I plant it so the potatoes have maybe 6 or 8 inches of compost below them, and then as they sprout and start growing upward, I gradually top up the compost and roll up the edges of the bag. Eventually, I have the equivalent of a whole bag of compost, with the potato foliage growing out the top and potatoes all the way through. Actually, it’s a bit more than the equivalent of a whole bag of compost, since I wind up filling the bag more completely than it was to begin with; I’d guess a 70-litre bag holds maybe 90 litres by the time it’s filled up. (Oh, and don’t forget to punch some holes in the bottom of the bag to let excess water drain; I forgot at the weekend, so I’m hoping the downpours since then didn’t drown my little potatoes.)
Anyway, we’ll see how it works out, planting them so late in the year, but it’s fun to try anyway. I’d like to be able to give Hannah Sophia some home-grown potatoes of our own later this year! If our various gardening projects work out, she’ll also be able to try some pumpkin and sweet corn and various other nibbles…
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