The BALGA Members’ Shop has a sale on seed potatoes. They’re reduced to £1 per kilo. The Members’ Shop is open every Sunday from 10am – 12 pm.
If you’re a new plotholder, why not get started with some seed potatoes?
Compost Sunday and Potato Weekend 2022
Compost Sunday and Potato Weekend 2022 were very successful events. We received nearly £170 on both days on Potato Weekend. Thank you to the members who supported us by buying compost or potatoes.
We had over 30 members take advantage of our pre-order service. We hoped that it saved you time because you didn’t need to wait for your potatoes to be packed. Thank you to all those members who made an order through the pre-ordering system. If you’d like to make an order, please click here. The potatoes are selling out fast, and it’s better to get your favourite varieties sooner rather than later because we have already sold out of Charlotte. A good alternative salad crop would be Nadine, which is currently in stock.
Just to let you know, the red onion sets have now arrived, but the white onion sets should be delivered in a couple of weeks. So we will keep you updated.
Potato Weekend 2022
Unfortunately, the supplier cannot deliver the seed potatoes until Wednesday, 16 February. Therefore, Potato Weekend will be postponed to Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 February. If you have already pre-ordered potatoes for collection on Saturday 12 or Sunday 13 February, we will assume you’re happy to collect on the same day one week later. If the date is not suitable, please email Stewart (tradesec@balga-online.co.uk).Please note the BALGA Members’ Shop will be closed on Saturday 12 and 13 February, but the shop will re-open for Potato Weekend on Saturday 19 and 20 February.
Click here to see more about ordering potatoes.
Blight Warning July 2021
Blight warning
With the very wet and humid conditions of the past few weeks, the almost inevitable potato blight has struck very early on both sites. Potato leaves will discolour and stalks will die back in a matter of days with a distinctive odour about them. If the foliage is not quickly removed down to the ground level on those plants affected, the blight can spread to the underground tubers, which then become unusable. All affected foliage that has been removed should not be composted or placed in the brown bin, but instead burnt or put into general waste bins. Tomato plants can be similarly affected and should be pulled up and disposed of in the same way. Spores that cause the blight can remain in the soil or compost for a year or so. It is thus better to avoid planting potatoes and tomatoes next year in the ground that has been so affected this year.
There are now several varieties of blight resistant potatoes and tomatoes available, which are usually clearly labelled as such and which you may care to think about growing next year. Blight seems to be becoming more prevalent each year, but not usually this early in the season. Only once before have I known it this early in 40 years of allotment gardening although most years now it often presents itself by late August or September when most of the growing has been done and crops can be harvested successfully.
Potato and Onion Sets Availability March 2021
Potatoe sales have been very successful. We’ve sold over 90% of our potatoes. Potatoes are selling fast and it’s not too late to make an order, but it’s better to do it sooner rather than later. Members can click here to place an order for seed potatoes, onion and shallot sets.
We have sold out of even more varieties and we have limited stock with some of our main crop and second early potatoes. It is not too late to buy your potatoes or onion and shallot sets, but we are selling out fast and you may want to buy your favourite variety as soon as possible to avoid disappointment.
You may want to try Premiere as your first early potato because the variety is resistant to blight and common scab and they are ideal for frying.
Did you forget to plant garlic in the Autumn? We have garlic that is bred for Spring planting. It would need planting straight away, but members can make an order by clicking here. Garlic is not on our pre-order form, but you can request it in the “Additional notes” or email our Trading Secretary by clicking here.
Availability of Potatoes and Onion Sets May 2020
After a very successful delivery service, we only have a limited amount of seed potatoes left in stock with many varieties having already sold out. If you do not have any seed potatoes planted yet, there is still time to order some seed potatoes from the Members’ Shop.
Why not try a different potato variety this year? We have a main crop variety called ‘Markies’ which is perfect for chipping, but it has an advantage over Maris Piper because it has better blight and disease resistance. Another good variety to try is second early ‘Saxon’ as it has uniform long oval-shaped potatoes that produce a good yield. Saxon is somewhat floury potato and is excellent for baking and chipping and has good resistance to drought and after cooking discolouration.
As you can see from the table, varieties are selling out, so why not do an online order to receive your potatoes? Click here to read the details on how to make an online order.
Blightwatch
Did you know you can register with a website called Blightwatch and it will send you alerts when weather conditions increase the chance of blight on your crops? You can choose up to ten postcode areas to cover the surrounding areas and registration is free.
BALGA received an email alert this morning advising that a Hutton Period Alert was affecting a nearby postcode. Visit the Blightwatch website for more information.
Availability of potatoes, onions and shallots 2019
After a successful few weeks of trading, we have sold out of even more varieties and have limited stock of some of our first earlies, salad potatoes and shallots. It’s not too late to buy your potatoes, onions or shallots, but as we are selling out of certain varieties, you may want to buy your favourite variety as soon as possible at the members’ shop to avoid disappointment.
We have sold out of Casablanca, but Swift is a good alternative because it produces large tubers and it’s one of the fastest maturing first early potatoes.
Setanta is a good main crop potato which you might not have tried before. It is blight resistant, high yielding, has good drought tolerance and is ideal for roasting and mashing. Why not try this as your main crop potato?
We trialled pre-packed potatoes in 2.5kg bags this year and they have proved to be very successful with nearly all the bags sold. We still have Cara, Kestrel and Setanta available in pre-packed 2.5kg bags, although the Cara and Kestrel pre-packs are nearly gone.
With all the poor weather we’ve been having, it’s a great time to buy potatoes and let them chit until you’re ready to plant them out. The members’ shop is open every Sunday 10am-12pm or click here to take advantage of our pre-order form to save time as your order will be ready for you on collection. Click here to see a full list of potatoes still available as well as more information about each variety.
The No-Dig Diary May 2018
There hasn’t been too much going on down the allotment for the last couple of months …… even been too cold for weeds and just a bit too wet to work!
In the meantime I have been puzzling over no-dig potatoes. How does that work? My initial solution was to avoid the problem by not growing potatoes this year. However the gardening fraternity are a generous lot and by April I had been asked to grow a row of spuds for a friend.
Up in Weston, the farmers also use no-dig but on a far larger scale. As it happens they are trialling no-dig potatoes this season, so of course I wanted to know how they went about it.
Translated into allotment terms, we start with some levelled ground and place our chitted potatoes on the surface at the usual spacing.
Next comes a layer of manure or compost or both.
On top of this is a layer of straw. This will benefit from a good soaking once it’s in place.
The top layer is grass cuttings – obviously not from grass treated for weeds & moss & such like ! The grass will rot down, and whilst its doing that, it stops the straw blowing about. Thinking ahead to pigeons etc. picking through all those layers, I covered the whole lot with some pea-netting.
Apparently this method will produce potatoes that are a better shape and more regular sized that traditional cultivation. It also avoids stabbing your crop with the garden fork, because you don’t dig them up to harvest and should mean that rogue tubers don’t get left behind in the soil.
We shall see!
Annie
Autumn Working Parties – Part Two
The second working party this autumn was held at the Clare Crescent site in Baldock where we had planted seed potatoes on the last cultivated plot at this site in the spring. This site is still managed by North Herts District Council.
A very loose experiment was run to see which half of it would produce the more tubers with half the plot being ridged up in the traditional way and the second half just dropping the seed potatoes in holes.
Although hardly scientific, the ridged half of the plot produced the best yield by a long way with very little being harvested from the non-ridged part. In fact it was more like trying to find where the rows of potatoes were on this half! Underground tree roots may have had something to do with it too though…
Surplus potatoes from the plot are being donated to Baldock’s Community Centre to help feed those in need this Christmas.
We’d love to have more volunteers help on working parties. They are a great way of building camaraderie and giving something back to the allotment association. The more we can do by members volunteering, the more money we can save from having to call experts in to do work which we could have done ourselves. ‘Banked’ volunteer hours are also used when applying for grants for future improvement work to our sites.
So keep an eye out for the next working parties and come and join in!