My potatoes, i need you

tagwex · Posted: Fri May 16, 2014 11:24 pm Post subject: My potatoes, i need you

Sowing the spuds tomorrow AT LAST. Went to the shed where I have been storing the seed this evening. They were kept in the dark in a box and in hessian sacks in a cool environment. A potato sower is coming tomorrow, basically I will be dropping them down a pipe walking behind the tractor. Question is, a lot of them have long (up to 200mm) white stalks on them which I am told will not sow properly as they will be dragged along the ground. We spent the evening dividing the seed up (exciting entertainment for Wexford) into those with little or no stalks to be sown by the sower and those that have stalks to be sown by hand. In the interest of getting them in quicker with the machine and having the job finished tomorrow would it be any harm if I broke the stalks off or will that knock them back? Need an answer quick on this one from anyone really.

tunnelsofhens10 · Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 12:20 am Post subject: spuds

knock the 200mm off. matter of fact if they have a stalk that long I would discard them all together. I would"nt take a chance on a soft spongy seed like that over a whole growing season for the sake of a 20euro bag of certified seed. (Your call)

My Potatoes · Posted: Sat May 17, 2014 7:15 pm Post subject: Re: My potatoes, i need you

Sorry, the good weather has had me offline. Tired now, and indoors again.

tagwex · Posted: Sun May 18, 2014 9:45 am Post subject:

Thanks my potatoes. I should have posted earlier, actually no, I should have checked out my seed earlier. We had 90 to 100kg of seed (10 varieties), all sown now just in time to see my beloved Arsenal in the FA Cup yesterday. We took the stalks off in the end otherwise they just wouldn't have gone down the sowing tubes. Took an executive decision just to get them into the ground when I had the help and the machinery here otherwise I would have had to plant approx. 30 kg of seed by hand today and it is due to lash down here in an hour or so. My back aches today.

Ash trees coming into leaf here now too, everytime I looked at them and the empty plot I thought of your saying, wishing them not to be in leaf. There are people who are digging up their earlies around here and mine have only just gone in. I may call them late earlies!

No tubers? That would be a disaster of biblical proportions. Well I can only hope now at this stage. I can only assume that new stalks will grow, we left the little buds on and only removed the long stalks.