Thompson & Morgan have over 14 delicious potato varieties to choose from, starting at just £2.99 for 20 tubers. If you have never grown your own potatoes before, it’s really easy to do – check out the potatoes on offer by clicking this link.
START DATE: Now
END DATE for the GYO potatoes offer is Midnight Wednesday 29th February 2012 (subject to availability)
Thompson & Morgan are offering a fabulous Potato KIT FREE* for every visitor – worth £15.00!
What you get in the kit:
5 x tubers of Potato ‘Vales Emerald’ - A Maris Peer/ Charlotte cross with an RHS Award of Garden Merit that is proving to be very popular. Potato ‘Vales Emerald’ produces generous yields of oval, cream-skinned and pale fleshed tubers. Perfect for your first potatoes of the year, and a simply delicious as a salad potato. Height and spread: 60cm (24″).
vales emerald
1 x potato planter – Holds approximately 40 litres of multipurpose compost (sufficient to plant 3 or 4 tubers).
5 x packets of vegetable seed – Receive 5 packets of quality vegetable seeds.
*Just pay £4.95 postage
Enter Offer Code: AF11109
Enter code in the box labelled “Enter catalogue or newspaper code:”
T&Cs: Offer cannot be used in conjunction with any other offer code and is only valid with orders placed online at www.thompson-morgan.com.
START DATE: NOW
END DATE: Midnight Sunday 27th November 2011
Click this link for more details about the free Potato KIT .
This must be a record for our first new potatoes! Luck has been with us and we have had quite warm soil temperatures.
new-potatoes-15-May
With fingers crossed, we planted these Maris Bard on 12th February, very early because Mike was away for the following 3 weeks. The seed potatoes were particularly big, which helped to give us a head start.
Even though the potatoes were covered with polythene we had a scare last week when we had a ground frost early in the morning. Leaping out of bed at first light, we rushed out to sprinkle the potatoes (& strawberries) with water – a trick to keep the frost off.
Other than the frost protection, we have not watered these potatoes at all since they were planted- and we only had 9.5ml rain in March and none in April!
The soil is now very dry, so it is easy to dig the new potatoes out with your hands.
digging-new-potatoes
The soil is full of the potato roots – which have helped the potato plants to grow so well.
roots+new-potatoes
The first new potatoes were quite delicious!
It must be time to plant potatoes!
Folk lore dictates that potatoes are planted on Good Friday. Good Friday was the first day the working man would have off between Christmas and Easter. He was keen to plant potatoes at the first opportunity because they were a staple food for his family.
plant-potato-with-chits-upwards
Folk law also states that
plant-potato-in-hole
So, it is up to you to choose which bit of folk lore you are going to follow when it comes to planting potatoes!
Caliente mustard reduces root invasion from potato cyst nematodes.
The mustard should be sown, on the ground which is going to grow the potatoes, in the early autumn before the potatoes are to be planted. The mustard is chopped up and incorporated into the soil in the spring, before potato planting.
Caliente mustard releases a gas called isothiocyanate when it is chopped or crushed in damp conditions. This gas acts as a biofumigantin the soil, and reduces the actions of potato cyst eelworm.
Purple Majesty Potatoes contain up to ten times more health-giving anti-oxidants than conventional white potatoes.
Characteristics of Purple Majesty Potatoes:
Purple Majesty Potatoes are fun to eat as they are purple even when cooked!
TopVeg has (inadvertently) demonstrated that potato blight spreads in warm wet weather.
Last week was warm and wet, and for some reason a cloche had been put over half the potato row, so covering those potato leaves and keeping the rain off.
blight-in-uncovered-potatoes
The covered potatoes are healthy,
healthy-potato-leaf
but those plants left out in the rain have been decimated.
blighty-potato-row
This all happened in a week, and it demonstrates that blight flourishes in warm wet weather, and it is really worth applying a protective spray to potato crops.
TopVeg received an SOS for Hessian Sacks needed to decorate for the Harvest Festival. The problem was they were ordered at 6am on Tuesday, (must have had a planning meeting on Monday night!) with a note saying:
‘As these are for our harvest festival at the weekend, I wonder if you would kindly send them as soon as possible, as ideally would like to set up on Friday. ‘
TopVeg packed the sacks and sent them with the morning post, & they arrived today, Wednesday, the very next day.
The purchaser kindly sent this note: ‘Thank you so much, received today.
I really appreciate speedy turn around from TopVeg’
Click this link to buy some Hessian Sacks.
TopVeg Hessian Sacks have been used for sports day and the school play. They are ideal for storing potatoes and onions as they allow the vegetables to breathe, and keep the light out. Using TopVeg Hessian Sacks to decorate for Harvest Festival is a first as far as we know.
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