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Hello,

I bought my first early seed potatoes this week and a net of red onion sets. I won't do anything with the onion sets yet until the soil warms up a bit more. I've opened the net of potatoes and spread them out on a tray near a window sill in my workshop. This helps them to develop 'chitts' - young shoots.

What is the best way to grow an early crop of potatoes? I'd really like to plant my seed potatoes out a few weeks earlier to get an earlier crop but I'm worried about a late frost. Does anyone have any ideas?

Hello Pete,

I think the answer is to cover the site in which the potatoes are to be planted in a sheet of black polythene. Black polythene will soak up any sunlight and warm the soil.
Secure the edges of the polythene with bricks or soil and then cut crosses into the polythene at the correct spacings where the tubers are to be planted. Plant the tubers through the polythene. I'm confident the polythene will protect the tubers from any late frosts.

Every year I grow potatoes in pots as well as in the ground. When I lift the ones in pots I always repot them after taking the crop, with all the haulm still on I tuck them back in the same soil, feed them well, leave them another month to six weeks and then get a second crop as good as the first.
I have been doing this for many years now and it has always been successful. Why don't you give it a try?