I have a question

Can anyone tell me when you know when it's time to harvet your home grown potaotes
This is the first year that I have grown any and I am very green about the whole thing. I should have read about this before planting
Do you wait till the leaves are yellowing and the flowers have gone
Are there any veg growers out there who can help me please

Depends on the variety too but you don't need to wait for the leaves to die out. I suppose the longer you wait the bigger they'll be. Its a few years since I tried growing potatoes. (the children - now in their 30s grew them in large buckets.)

Thanks Jane,
I shall have a look later and see what I find.
My green beans are covered in Aphids so keep spraying them with diluted washing up liquid. It does the job!! They are after the flowers.

Wish we had a bit more sun in our tree surrounded garden. I tried baby tomatoes in the hanging basket once and they worked well. Got some good herbs but nothing very exciting. With our new neighbour planning a huge extension on our south facing border we'll get even less light soon!

That's a shame Jane. Do you get alot of moss as you get so little sun?
I am growing tomatoes, greenbeans, potaotes, salad onions, strawberries and two herbs, parsley and chives for the first time this year.
Was thinking about getting an allotment

yep, and more than our fair share of slugs and snails too. Still its pretty in the spring with all the bulbs. unfortunately we're usually in Oz now and miss the best of the display!

I have a small garden and we get lots of slugs and snails too, boo hoo

Hi Pepi, try some sweetcorn the plants can be put in very close together, they freeze well to. lv Janet x

I think you have to wait until the flowers die but not the leaves. Ours haven't flowered at all but my son has dug some of his up His is in the garden, ours are in a tub but this is the first year we have tried to grow them

Thanks ladies,
Will try sweetcorn, love it, thanks for the idea.
I will go out and have a look at my potatoes later and see if they are ready.
It's the first year for growing veg I'm really enjoying it

We are growing lettuce and radishes
Problem being ............SLUGS!
Can't put pellets down because of a certain nosey Westie
Will have to try vaseline round the edges of the container
Worked for the Hostas

velcro works for slugs and snails too around the rims of pots

Great idea Pepi - Bit costly though when you have 7 baskets and 16 pots and tubs in assorted sizes. As we have no pets I'll stickto the pellets - they work well as long as therain slows down a bit

That's very true Jane, it works well if you only have a few pots
I also put broken egg shells in my pots that stops them in their tracks too

This is the first year I have grown potatoes as well. (Always grew them when I was married but it was ex hubby who did gardening then) Apparently if they are early potatoes they should be ready when they have flowered or flower buds have dropped off. If they are main crop you let the leaves die down. At least that's what my gardening book said!

Thanks Sue, that's very helpful. I have lots of gardening books, why didn't I think of looking

Thanks Pepi
The velcro sounds good for my lettuce as that is my main concern
Have a LOT of pots and baskets as it is easier for me to tend them but my poor lettuce

Yes the wee slugs do love a good lettuce. I grew some earlier in the season but as I was going to eat them I didn't want to put down slug pellets.
I used the velcro and crushed egg shells. It did the trick.
Boy it is raining hard this morning. I didn't get out to dig up some of my potatoes yesterday and it doesn't look like I will be doing it today either

Not a good day for digging up potatoes is it?

poppytree wrote:Not a good day for digging up potatoes is it?

No it's not. I'm just imagining the mess I would get in if it was dry let alone chucking it down with rain. I'd be plastered in soil!!!!

I have masses of slugs and snails too this year - lots more than usual and find that pellets just attract them. I told my son who was staying here while I was on holiday to EXTERMINATE any he saw. He used all my salt up I am going to order some stuff called nemaslug which is a biological thing. I used something similar for chafer grubs and it seemed to work. As its raining today I expect they will all come out so will have to be careful where I tread on the path.

I haven't tried this but .... apparently cutting tumble dryer sheets into strips to form an edge around the area apparently keeps them out. Its something to do with the anti-static stuff that they don't like. I read the same applies for ants. This one woman puts a surround of tumble dryer sheets around her tent as it stops mosquitoes too.

When I find the post I'll copy and paste it on here

The tumble drier sheet option sounds about right too
There are just so many of them