Down here in darkest South Wiltshire it’s been raining for a good 24 hours now. Hurrah! Don’t think I’ve enjoyed rain this much before. In a normal British summer we just moan about it raining but this year the drought seems to have gone on and on. To celebrate I decided to dig up the first of the spuds. So there I was digging up the first spuds of the year and I thought does it get any better than this?
Two Chances Veg Plot Blog 
So has the rain done any good down there? It rained all day here on Monday but at the plot yesterday it was dry under the fruit bushes. Martyn did some digging and it was only wet on the surface. It did rain again overnight so fingers crossed
Sue it’s rained quite heavily here today so I’m hoping everythings had a good soaking.
They look great. What variety are they? I’ve emptied quite a few containers, but I haven’t dug any spuds from the allotment yet.
Hi Jo, my favourite salad varieties, Charlotte and Anya, I’ve dug the plot ones first as they went in before the bags which I used when I ran out of space.
Lucky you as there’s still been virtually no rain here!
They look good, what varieties are they and did they taste okay? I’ve dug up, and eaten, a few of my Swift earlies and Charlotte salad ones with lots more to come I hope!
Charlotte and Anya Flighty, the Charlottes taste great, and will be sampling Anya tomorrow. Seems odd to say but hope you have some rain soon!
Hi Damo, When is the right time to pick the spuds, I have three different varaties growing at the moment, with a couple of them are flowering. Should I pick them now? If not now, when?
Hi Rob good question I take a bit of a trial and error approach. The spuds in the plot flowered 3-5 weeks ago and the ones in bags/containers are in flower. We’d used up the last of the shop bought so I decided to lift a couple of plants from about 30 I have. I was happy with the yield and I will just lift as and when we need them for now and see how it goes. I’m sure there’s more details in books etc and on other sites but that’s my approach.
We’ve finally had some rain here too.
The other day we had our first ever ‘everything from the garden’ day. I had a vietnamese clay pot with pork and my mooli for lunch, and a roast haunch of venison with Arran Pilot spuds, chard, broad beans and turnips for dinner.
I only dug up two potato plants and we’ve still got about 6lbs of spuds in the kitchen awaiting eating!
Your menu sounds fantastic you just have to eat whatever is harvested. Here it was roast chicken with home grown Charlotte spuds, courgette, squash, runner, broad and french beans.
Oooo…..not fair!! You’ve obv had more rain than we have… look at the size of your spuds!! I’d kill for that crop!!
To be honest Soilman I can almost lean out of the back downstairs window and touch them so watering isn’t the hard toil for me as it is for you allotmenteers, I’m not sure I could hack what you are going through to keep things alive, I take my hat off to your efforts! We’ve had four days of decent rain and it’s just started again, hope it stops on Sunday though for our village music festival.