You won't save money growing your own potatoes, or at least not in England, according to New Scientist magazine. While the author admitted that for every kilo of seed potatoes you planted, you'd get 10 kilos back, the cost of buying seed potatoes, which will be certified virus-free, plus fertiliser, tool depreciation and varied other costs, mean you will just about break even.
My spud economics differs: as long as you buy at least 5kg of seed potatoes - the more you buy, the cheaper they are per kilo - and feed them with home-made compost, you'll come out way ahead. But there's no getting away from the need to buy seed potatoes. My first potato crop here was inedible. A former owner explained he'd grown commercial crops for years, so various areas of our farm were liable to be infested with a possibly unnamed virus he believed was carried by aphids. I can grow spuds only by never planting spuds where spuds have been in the previous five years. If I try to save seed potatoes for next year, my only return for a lot of work is rock like spuds that won't soften even with a week's boiling.
