The great potato challenge 2015

Every year we have a family growing contest and this year the veg of choice is potatoes, 'Maris Piper' to be exact and the winners are the team to harvest the most potatoes.

Maris Piper potatoes are my absolute favourite, in my opinion they make the best roast potatoes and who doesn't love a nice crispy roasting with their Sunday dinner. As they are a maincrop potato March is the perfect time of year to plant these seed potatoes which have been chitting since early February. 

So last weekend we did just that.. 

Miss K & Mr H's Bag

Each team filled a bag 1/4 full of compost and then Miss K and Mr H's got first pick and the sneaky devils tried to pick the four best seed potatoes but Miss T soon put a stop to that. As the seed potatoes we have are pretty small so we decided to plant four in each of our grow bags.

Mine & Miss T's Bag

Both the girls really loved mucking in and arranging the seed potatoes neatly on top of the soil making sure the shoots were facing up not down. All that was left to do was cover our seed potatoes with compost, give them a good watering and cover then with a cloche to protect them from any frost we might get over the next few weeks.

All covered, ready for watering. Mine & Miss T's is the one with the pink stick in

Maincrop potatoes are normally ready to be harvested about 18-20 weeks after planting so we should know who the winning team is by the end of the school summer holidays in late August.

I spent the rest of my day was spent weeding the veg beds with Miss K ready for sowing and planting up with seedlings. We also enjoyed some good old family funtime, the girls were cartwheeling round while we attempted to play tug of war with the woofs. I don't think Harry our male lab quite understood the rules as he kept pulling the rope, and running away with it draped over his neck, silly pooch! 

x B x