Just an FYI - at last Monday night GIY Ennis meeting, Chrys Gardiner told us that the spell of serious frost we all experienced would help to kill off blight spores that may linger on in "volunteers" (I love that expression). Also the frost will help to kill off slugs and their eggs. Yippee!!!

Edited by Mary Byrt, 8 month(s) ago

hi dermot i got four 2.5 kg of seed spuds in virginia.i got sarpo mira, sorpo axona,(maincrop) sharpes express (earlies) and catriona (2nd early)trying out different breeds to see what works.niall walsh has the garden centre in tullyvin, he said he was getting some in this week.

hi guys. when you chit spuds how long do have before you have to plant them

Edited by Stephen Brady, 7 month(s) ago

Heatons (yes, the clothes and homeware shop) are selling seed potatoes. I was startled, but pleased.

€3 each or 2 packs for €5. Each pack only has 10 potatoes (about 0.5kg) but that suits me as I want to try small amounts of a lot of varieties.

Thanks for that Carol, I went to Heatons today, got myself some Rocket, first earlies according to the pack and some Kerrs Pink which says its maincrop. I noticed alot of the seed potatoes had purple sprouting from them, went for ones with the least amount of that.

Can anyone tell me if I should remove any sprouting and start again or should I just leave them be and put them out to chit?

I've never grown potatoes before from seed (just the spuds that sprout in the bottom of the bag) so I'll be interested to see how this works out. Any advice would be much appreciated!

Edited by Joanne Quinn, 7 month(s) ago

For anyone in Waterford McGuires Garden Centre have lots of different varieties of seed potatoes in various sized bags. I was a bit pushed for time so will go back when I've got more time and decide what varieties to go for.

Hey, John C spoke at the last GIY Waterford meeting about spud and stuff, and there is an article with his notes here at :
http://www.giyireland.com/article.php?article_id=21

...its was interesting to hear that he doesn't rush things for the Paddy's day planting, and often plants later...
Joanne - I'd be inclined to leave things be and keep it to about 3-4 sprouts as the weeks go by - more sprouts give more (but smaller) spuds.
Grew Orla and Sarpo Mira last year - Orla were great - early, trouble free and tasty! Sarpo Mira proved their blight resistance, and produced plenty of spuds - not as tasty though as other varieties, but very easy -no spraying :-)

Found yet another odd source of seed potatoes - the €2 shop. The shop I was in had 14 different varieties. The bags have 6 or 8 seed potatoes, depending on the variety, and are €2 a bag or 2 for €3. Fantastic for trying varieties out instead of planting the usual 2.5kg bag.

They also had asparagus, garlic and onions as part of the 2 for €3 deal.

I found a list of their locations nationwide:
http://www.eurogeneral.ie/retail/locator.htm

Hi all, Good source of certified seed potatoes is Woodies DIY stores, a bag of approx 35 potatoes is 7.99 and they have all the favourite varieties. Early varieties can be chitted now and left until the chit is about 1.5 inches in length before planting out in mid to late March (depending on weather). 3-4 sprouts is normal. Main crops do not need to be chitted and can be planted out end march.

For maincrops (and queens) I usually get 25kg bags in the local agricultural stores. These work out about 20 euro for 25kg of certified seeds. I only need a fraction of the bag but I can usually sell a few on to neighbours. Even if you end up throwing out half of the them, it sill ends up cheaper than buying smaller quantities.
Main drawback is restricted number of varieties but if you can find more people to share them with, you can have more varieties.