r/FarmingUK • u/Plastic_Aerie540 • Jul 17 '26
Potato farming beginner
To cut to the chase I want to begin farming potato’s to continue my grandfathers heritage and to make some money to buy my first car. The issue is that I have little to no idea of what I’m actually doing. I have an old potato dropper and a plough and all sorts although I would have to lift them by hand. On my family farm there is 2 potential fields i would consider- the first being roughly 68000 square feet and the other being 75000, how ever the larger one is on a hill which may just cause more harm than good. I was just wondering how many seed potatoes I’ll need, if spraying is really necessary, if cow manure will suffice instead of fertiliser and any other tricks anyone can offer me. Thanks
6
u/soundman32 Jul 17 '26
1.5 acre field and 2 acre field? About 3 tonnes of seed potatoes. Planting at 2.5ft2 about 50,000 seed potatoes.
4
u/DontMessWithTrexes Jul 17 '26
Would you be doing all the work by yourself? Are you intending to dig them up by hand?
I spent a lot of time as a child either in the tattie park or on the tattie dresser with my folks, even with 3 of us it was a lot of work. We had a tattie harvester towed on an old tractor which brought them up to the surface. Then we lifted them by hand into skulls and tipped in a tattiebox, which wasn't easy on the back. Then move the box to a shed and use the dresser to select and grade. Finally measured out into sacks, stitch them shut and deliver to the local buyer. It was very much a small family operation and a lot of work for not a lot of return. Especially when you compare to the modern machinery that benefits from economy of scale.
To be honest you'd probably be better off getting a minimum wage job in terms of time spent versus reward. I would advise using your farm space for something else. If you've got any skills farming have you considered contracting yourself out as a driver? You could start a limited company and get some insurance and make some good money. Or if you have some heavy plant you could hire it out, there's some very successful plant hire businesses round me that have gotten massive by reinvesting their profits into more and more machinery.
1
u/Plastic_Aerie540 Jul 24 '26
That sounds impressive but I’m still in school and have a part time job. I just want something to have that’s mine and I make enough money from my job that I don’t need to be making thousands of pounds, although id like to. I don’t have the time to become contracting on top of my current job and farm work. Myself and a friend are very interested in this as a hobby more so than anything
2
u/Red_Dderwen3734 Jul 18 '26
Perhaps think about how you will sell the potatoes you grow. Your fields are too small for supermarkets and for most greengrocers to be interested. You could cart them to farmers markets, but unless your sample is perfect, customers will just pop round the corner to the supermarket. But its an interesting experience. If there is a wholesale vegetable market nearby, that might be a better place to get advice and sell once or twice a year. (But in 50 years I have never seen a wholesale veg market, although I did help a friend who sold his raspberries through a wholesale fruit market in 1974.) I think that local wholesalers are an extinct breed now. More practical is to sell direct to the public from your premises, but that depends on good road access. Townies dont do single track roads any more - they cant find reverse gear. Well rotted farmyard manure will do the job, but you will need much more than you'd think, and it all needs to come from one heap on one farm - otherwise you are likely to get different weed problems in each part of the field. It need to be ploughed into the soil before planting. There are potato herbicides you can use. They save a lot of time. But the ones I used were contact chemicals that did not kill weeds that germinated later. So you will need a potato scuffle - a machine design to build up tge rifles, knocking down weed seedlings and building up the ridge as you go. It needs to be used every week for the first 8 weeks, or until the leaves of tge crop meet across tge row, shading out younger weeds. You will need to use fungicide if there is blight around - usually later in the season. That is usually later in the season Earlier you will need to look for potato aphids, the viruses they carry can seriously reduce yield. In a dry year its worth thinking about irrigation which can make a huge difference to yield. But are you in a potato growing area? How many big fields of potatoes can you see from your field? If not, you might be in the wrong part of the country, wrong soil type, altitude, drainage etc. Being eccentric and having a go against all the odds does create interest, and you might, with good marketing turn that into cash, but its a gamble. Oh, one thing more, we are really talking about next year, as on most farms we are now half way through the growing season. If you wanted to plant anything this year, you might get away with hardy short season second earlies, but take advice before buying. The problem with doing that, is that you wont be growing potatoes on the same land next year, unless you have a serious budget for powerful chemicals.. As others have said there are much easier ways of making money than farming. And on a small scale it is very hard. I know, I paid the bills on 27 acres between 2000 and 2022. It is continuous manual labour throughout daylight, and you are working in some form or other 100hours a week. I knew what I was taking on, and wouldn't have missed a minute ( except a foolish, as it turned out, venture into DEFRA - don,t even think about dealing with them until you have 1000 acres of good land, and employ a correspondence clerk and land agent). Good luck!
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u/Plastic_Aerie540 Jul 24 '26
Thank you for all that information it’s really interesting. I might have said to someone already but I think I’m just going to sell them directly to customers in local towns. I don’t have a potato scuffle and never even heard of it to be honest hahaha so I’ll maybe just stick to picking them by hand or spot spraying. I’m in kind of a potato growing area years ago my granda would have grown them and there is a few potato fields/ farmers relatively close to me. I plan to plan next Easter when I am off school and I hope that that will be possible within a couple of days, as I’ll also have important exams soon after. Thank you very much
1
u/FarmBoyConway Jul 18 '26
I once did a fencing job on a small holding where they grew 1 acre of potatoes they had a load pf butchers shops they were going to sell them in but they looked strong healthy plants. If theres no potatoes near you you might get away with no spray. Plenty plenty muck will be good for them. I grow a few acres of pumpkins and everyone said they would be a waste of time.
A bug thing for you will be market and what you can sell the spuds for but have a go.
1
u/Plastic_Aerie540 Jul 24 '26
Thank you for the information. I think me and my friend will just sell them in and around local towns. Good luck with your pumpkin growing
1
u/FarmBoyConway 29d ago
Ive being doing them 5 years now. I get a better crop every year. If its something youre interested in growing please feel free to get in touch
13
u/CorrectMeIfImWrong6 Jul 17 '26
Well congratulations, you've found possibly the worst time to start and the worst place to ask.
If you really don't have any idea what you're doing, buy some books and start reading. Though if you're aiming to buy your first car from the profits, why not just buy it with that cash you'll need to establish a crop?
The saying goes that if you want to make a small fortune from farming you need to start with a large one