Welcome to Grow Your Own Potatoes
Whether you are taking part in GYOP with your school or just looking for information about potatoes for your class, you will find everything you need.
Schools may currently be closed across the country, but this does not mean that everything has to stop.
The Grow Your Own Potatoes project is going ahead as planned with registrations open until Friday 22 January 2021.
Kits will then be fulfilled and dispatched into schools, to arrive before the February half term holiday. As schools will probably still be closed at this time, why not get the children who are still attending school to look out for your kit arriving. They could then kick-start the project for you by putting your seed potatoes to chit over the holidays. This means that by the time planting day arrives 3 March you will be ready to plant.
Don't forget too, this year we have developed a NEW 6 week block of work to support the project between planting and harvesting, that fits perfectly into term 4. On line now ready for you to build into your lesson planning.
Keep in touch
We would love to hear about your Grow Your Own Potatoes experiences. Share your pictures - Twitter @potatoes4school FB @potatoesforschools
Register
Sign up NOW for GYOP 2021
Please note: There seems to have been some confusion when ordering kits for 2020. As in previous years, if you would like to receive more than one FREE growing kit for your school in 2021 (up to a maximum of 4 per school) you will need to register separately for each kit. You will also need to use a different email address for each registration.
Please be aware that ONLY Primary schools in England, Scotland and Wales (5 to 11 year-olds) are eligible to take part in the GYOP project and will be allocated kits.
Chitting
Start chitting your seed potatoes on Tuesday 16 February 2021, this will take about two weeks.
Please note: If chitting day falls in your half term holiday don't forget to leave your seed potatoes on your chitting tray (built into your kit box) in a warm place, before you break up.
Chitting will speed up the ageing process of your potatoes, by exposing them to light and, more importantly, a bit of warmth. This will cause the eyes of the seed potato to start sprouting and should result in a better crop.
Planting
Tuesday 2 March 2021
All schools taking part in the GYOP competition will be planting on this date. This year you have 15 weeks to grow a successful crop before harvesting on Tuesday 15 June 2021
By now, you should by now have chitted your potatoes but don’t worry if not, you can still plant them, just be extra careful not to over water them before they have had a chance to get established.
Also, don’t forget to label your grow-bags to help identify the variety growing.
Growing
15 weeks from planting to harvesting.
To grow a successful crop of potatoes in your grow bags, your potatoes will need: light, water, food, space and air.
Make sure you find the perfect spot to stand your bag, keep the soil moist but not wet and don’t forget to top up your soil as the plant grows, to give the potatoes plenty of room.
Watch out for late frosts too, potato plants hate frost!
Harvest
Tuesday 15 June 2021
This is the exciting time, when you find out if all of your hard work has paid off, just 15 weeks after planting.
If you remove the green tops from your plants, it makes them easy to pull out of the bag without damaging them, this means you can re-use the bags to grow something else.
Once out of the bags, the fun begins; roll up those sleeves and rummage through the soil to find your potatoes, just watch out for the mother tuber!!
Competition
All entries for GYOP 2021 must be entered before Friday 25 June 2021
Don't forget to keep your two crops separate and weigh them separately once you have washed the dirt off. Remember also, you must weigh your potatoes in grams
- Submit the weight of your Rocket crop
- Submit the weight of your Regional crop
- Submit the weight of your largest individual potato (any variety)
- Submit the number of potatoes in a crop from a single variety
Featuring
Great news
Sign up NOW for 2021
