Potatoes

pistolknight · **Posted:** Sat Feb 20, 2010 11:36 am

Me and the missus had a spud competition both choosing tyres and different locations, mine harvested before Xmas and hers yesterday, mine about 20 edible size potatoes hers below, mine got to 4 tyres high and in more sun, and hers 3 tyres high, will be good to see what I win :devil:

Sorry CD looks like the potato salad is off, will have more yabbies instead :lol:

Sorry pic is from Phone so quality a bit low, the Tomatoes are Roma's from AP, some have bottom end rot

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She will kill me when she joins and reads this :lol:

chillidude · **Posted:** Mon Feb 22, 2010 2:48 pm

Yep, yep - she will !

oldute · **Posted:** Mon Feb 22, 2010 4:34 pm

Speaking of potatoes, does anybody plant normal spuds instead of buying "seed" potatoes.
I've heard the only difference is that they have more eyes.
They are pretty expensive at around $10-12 because you can buy a lot of potatoes for that.

seamonkey · **Posted:** Mon Feb 22, 2010 5:17 pm

Just about to try it out myself,Oldute. My mum used to put normal ones in the ground. When we were kids we used to have fun digging them up. Hope it does work otherwise I will start to wonder if she just dug a bag of spuds under the ground to keep us out of her hair for a few hours. Mothers come up with all types of plans!!

earthbound · **Posted:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 12:19 pm

The plan is that the seed potatoes you buy are disease free where as the eating ones from the shop can not be guaranteed for that. Personally I have planted ones from the shop without good results, and I'm doing it again in the not too distant future...

The problem I have with the seed potatoes is that you get a big bag full, way more than you ever want to plant out, and the rest just rot in the bag..

chillidude · **Posted:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 12:48 pm

earthbound wrote:

The problem I have with the seed potatoes is that you get a big bag full, way more than you ever want to plant out, and the rest just rot in the bag..

Yep !

Planted those kipflers you gave me EB but nothing has come up yet. The turmeric is starting to take off though - piccies sooon.

earthbound · **Posted:** Tue Feb 23, 2010 6:49 pm

I couldn;t believe the purple potatoes Himzo posted a link to earlier.. I mean, I've seen what I thought were purple potatoes, but now I realize, they just don't come close to real purple potatoes... Once again, not available in W.A. though. :error:

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I love the look of their potato mixes, this is the sort of thing you should have in your potato patch, some biodiversity.

The site these were from is here, looks like they have a lot of stuff.. www.thelostseed.com.au

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chillidude · **Posted:** Tue Mar 30, 2010 11:43 am

Bloody hell - do The Lost Seed send anything to WA ???

Just browsed through and found at least a dozen items I'm interested in and they don't/won't send a single one to WA.

Granny Smith · **Posted:** Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:28 pm

It's not their fault. I'm sure they'd love to make sales in WA. Blame the WA Potato Board for a lot of it. We have the only potato board in Oz and it's why we have such a restricted choice.

BUT, I'm also told by a local potato grower that Coles and Woolworths will only stock about three varieties, so why would the commercial guys want to grow anything else!!!

chillidude · **Posted:** Tue Mar 30, 2010 1:41 pm

Ah, it's not just the spuds GS.

- sourdough culture
- kefir culture
- 99% of their tomatoes
- 50% of their beans
- their one chilli
- the interesting cukes
- 100% their eggplants
and the list goes on.....

But I did manage to get most of the above from Eden seeds and Diggers will supply most of the same as well.

dufflight · **Posted:** Tue Mar 30, 2010 7:27 pm

Just order what you want. They may just send them any way by mistake.

And when you get a bag of seed potatoes, you just build a bigger garden bed for them.

chillidude · **Posted:** Thu Apr 01, 2010 10:59 am

Granny Smith wrote:

It's not their fault. I'm sure they'd love to make sales in WA. Blame the WA Potato Board for a lot of it. We have the only potato board in Oz and it's why we have such a restricted choice.

By the way, meant to say I agree wholeheartedly with the above (except I would have used some swear words as well) :devil:

Granny Smith wrote:

BUT, I'm also told by a local potato grower that Coles and Woolworths will only stock about three varieties, so why would the commercial guys want to grow anything else!!!

Yeah, well supermarkets are the whole reason that most varieties are ignored and that only those that ship well (bugger all to do with flavour) are the ones stocked - dumbing down the masses as a result.
If all you eat is the stuff stocked in supermarkets, then you can see why the fast food industry is so successful - just as bland but with less effort.

earthbound · **Posted:** Sun Apr 04, 2010 5:48 pm

I try to always buy and try alternative varieties.....

Himzo · **Posted:** Mon Apr 05, 2010 8:11 am

Hi EB,

Have you considered an approach to your local state member? here's a senario, you want to become an outlet for the Lost Seed Company in WA, but can't because of import restrictions. Isn't this a restriction of trade between states (I think theres some law against that).

Another way is to see if you can get some of the nurseries on side.

BTW, those pictures you posted looked like what came out of my potato patch earlier in the year. I have alo gotten other seeds from them and have had no failures yet and service was very quick.

Himzo.

earthbound · **Posted:** Wed Apr 07, 2010 5:31 pm

I think AQIS and the Dept of Agriculture would be pretty quick to stomp on things Himzo. It's all about risking spreading certain pests and diseases, and I reckon there have been a fair few people within the industry trying to get stuff in here.

It's a bit like getting Jade Perch into W.A., from a commercial standpoint, fisheries just will not approve it. I know at least 2 commercial growers that have petitioned the fisheries department for approvals, they were told that unless they can get 8-10 commercial growers wanting to grow JP here, it just wasn't going to happen.

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Potatoes

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Potatoes

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