Welcome to Grow Your Own Potatoes
THE GROW YOUR OWN POTATOES PROJECT WILL NOT BE GOING AHEAD IN 2022.
GYOP is funded by a statutory levy collected from farmers, growers and others in the potato supply chain, in England, Scotland and Wales. Earlier this year, levy payers in the potato sector voted to discontinue paying this levy. As a result, AHDB – the levy body for potatoes – is now stopping programmes of work that could be restarted in the future by others in the industry.
Unfortunately, this includes the GYOP project and means that we will be unable to issue any potato growing kits to schools in 2022.
Ministers in England, Scotland and Wales are currently deciding on the future of the potato levy and should things change we will be in touch. In the meantime, the GYOP team would like to thank you for your support over the years and would encourage you to continue to make use of the resources available through the site and on www.foodafactoflife.org.uk and keep growing.
Remember: “experience of where their food starts out is a vital ingredient in the battle to excite and engage children about their diets”
Dr Aric Sigman
Register
THE GROW YOUR OWN POTATOES PROJECT WILL NOT BE GOING AHEAD IN 2022.
Ministers in England, Scotland and Wales are currently deciding on the future of the potato levy and should things change we will be in touch. In the meantime, the GYOP team would like to thank you for your support over the years and would encourage you to continue to make use of the resources available through the site and on www.foodafactoflife.org.uk and keep growing.
Remember: “experience of where their food starts out is a vital ingredient in the battle to excite and engage children about their diets” Dr Aric Sigman
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
Unfortunately GYOP will not be going ahead in 2022
Change to National variety for 2021
