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.
Extreme weather in Scotland where the kits are packed, resulted in a delay to getting the kits out to schools this year.
Good news is that a generally warmer summer with regular rain resulted in stronger and larger tuber development, meaning the seed potatoes in kits will be ok to plant straight away without chitting. Potatoes should still be planted on or as near to planting day - 2 March to keep on track with timings and give them as much time as possible to grow before harvesting in June.
Please also note that this year it has been necessary to replace Rocket as the National variety and instead ALL schools will receive Casablanca for the competition nationwide, plus a regional variety, depending on where you are in the country.
The NEW 6 week block of work to support the project between planting and harvesting starts on 19 April. Get ready now, download the weekly plans to build into your lesson planning in term 4.
Keep in touch
We would love to hear about your Grow Your Own Potatoes experiences. Share your pictures - Twitter @potatoes4school FB @potatoesforschools
Register
Registrations for 2021 are CLOSED
Sign up NOW for GYOP 2022
Please note: There seems to have been some confusion when ordering kits. As in previous years, if you would like to receive more than one FREE growing kit for your school in 2022 (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
Change to National variety for 2021
New 6-week block of work LIVE
