Disappointing Charlotte

After some overnight rain, Saturday was a much fresher day with a fairly stiff breeze at times. We did have plenty of sunshine and with the temperature into the low twenties it was a very pleasant day.

On the plot I lifted the last of a row of Charlotte potatoes. These were planted on 23 April and so the last potatoes had been in the ground for 102 days. That’s a bit misleading as the tops had started to die back a few weeks ago. The crop from this row came to a disappointing 14.3kg. There were lots of small potatoes which hadn’t bulked up which I’m putting down to the very dry hot weather at the end of June and for most of July. 

The dry weather has meant slug activity has been reduced to an absolute minimum and the potatoes are all free of any nasty holes so should store well boxed up in the garage.

The next row to be lifted is a row of Winston’s planted alongside these Charlottes. It will be interesting to see if these have bulked up more as their haulms remained in better condition for longer. Both these varieties are our “banker” potatoes and it’s unusual for them to let us down.

Our last two rows of potatoes were planted on 16 June which is really late. It will be interesting to see how they perform. If they require 100 days to produce good size potatoes they will need to continue growing through to the middle of September.

So far so good they look to have come through our hot and dry spell of weather very well and are growing strongly. These are Nadine and Nicola another couple of varieties that are good “doers” on our plot. 

Copyright: Original post from A Gardener's Weather Diary http://ossettweather.blogspot.co.uk/ author M Garrett