Potatoes for show

To grow really top quality potatoes for show you need to remember one thing.......don't bother growing them in the ground !

If you do you'll only get rough, randomly shaped tubers with an assortment of skin blemishes and diseases as well as the usual holes from slug and pest damage.

They'll be fine for eating but to compete on the showbench they need to be grown in large pots of peat. This involves quite a bit of time and expense but the end justifies the means. As you can see from the pic my spuds gleam in comparison to the other entries around me and justifiably gained first prize.

The reason is that only the roots of the plant come into contact with the soil as they grow through the bottom of the pot. The actual swelling tubers are kept nice and cosseted in their sterile, peat growing medium and as a result they come out as clean as a whistle. Until they get their roots out into the soil you have to put a bit of general fertiliser in the bottom the pot.

I put a couple of seed tubers into the bottom of each peat filled pot. As the peat settles you may also have to top up each pot with a little more peat (in effect 'earthing up') and at this time of year you need to keep an eye out for predicted night frosts and cover them with fleece or sheets of newpaper.

Once growing away strongly the heavy foliage will need to be supported with canes and strings. Harvesting usually happens 12-14 weeks after planting but don't dig up the tubers straight away. What I do is cut off the foliage then leave the pots for a week or so (I actually lift them and take them into my garage) so that the potato skins can harden. If you lift them straight away the skins will rub off at the slightest touch and render them useless for showing.

If it's a week or two util the show you can sort them into sets and store them back in the peat until the night before the show. Only them