Saturday 16 June 2007

storm

The weather has been fairly diabolical for the last few days, today has been really heavy rain, so much so that there have even been leaks into the main house which is a worry. The forecast is for more of the same which is not an inspiriting thought.

Way back when I ordered the seed potatoes, some of which are already producing fine potatoes now, I asked for some micropropagated plantlets of heritage varieties. We heard nothing about them for months and then in the first week of June they finally arrived, just as Paul was away for the week doing something technical in Wales. So we're not sure how many days they were waiting for attention before he came home and found them but looking at them now I'd say that they were in pretty bad shape before they were sent.

Disappointing. I have had micro plants before but never seen them in such a state as these came in. I'm sure they all come from the same laboratories so perhaps it was just unlucky but I may not risk Alan Roman's ordering system again.

micro plants

A couple of them were very small but seem to be fairly good order, the other three were clearly too tall when they were packaged for the journey and tops had been nipped off leaving the plants practically leafless. We've potted them up and expect a fair recovery but they will have been set back which will reduce their crop and prevent us from creating the good store of seed potatoes for next year we had hoped for.

2 comments:

Rebsie Fairholm said...

Hello ... I came across your blog while googling about and have been really enjoying it. I'm a heritage spud fan too, and can appreciate your frustration with the microplants. I got some a couple of years back and had them arrive in less than perfect condition. Some recovered really well, some keeled over, but the resulting tubers were so tiny it took an extra year to get a decent crop from them. I guess it was worth it in the end, but they are a pain in the neck ... and expensive too.

Catofstripes said...

Hi Rebsie,

Thanks for the comments, like your blog too.

Unfortunately the news is bad to worse, when we returned from our whirlwind tour of Cardiff and the south we found that slugs had had the potato plantlets in their entirety. It's a bit of a blow but perhaps given the awful blight year we're having not as bad as it might be, I fear any seed saved would have been at some risk.