Buying Your Seed Potatoes from alanromans.com

 First Earlies      Second Earlies      Early Maincrop      Late Maincrop      Conservation Potatoes

We have sourced a wide range of certified UK seed potatoes at the best prices we can find. Most are available in 10 tuber, 20 tuber and 60 tuber lots (a few only as 10 tuber trial packs). The majority are sized between 35mm and 55 mm in diameter. A few varieties, mainly long, narrow salads, start at 30mm. A few in short supply or round in shape may go to 60mm

The majority are Super Elite or Elite grades (=EC2). A few, often for technical reasons, are only made available to gardeners at EC3 although these might well be from higher grade crops. All are fully labelled with producer’s nos. etc – in the case of Scottish seed this makes them traceable to part of a particular field. A few are Welsh or English grown but the majority are Scottish. We, along with most of the main UK catalogues, have voluntarily agreed to use only UK or Irish seed and avoid tubers from countries with endemic Brown Rot, Ring Rot or a new type of virulent blackleg, Dickeya which are major threats to UK agriculture. Unfortunately this includes important seed producers such as Holland, France and Germany where some very popular varieties are grown. One or two companies, if challenged, are claiming that DEFRA “tests” make these imports acceptable, but, as only samples of tubers are tested in any consignment, this claim does not impress trade bodies within the UK, particularly in Scotland.

Most seed potato orders are subject to a basic delivery and packaging charge of £7.30 because parcel rates are based on weight and potatoes are relatively heavy. This is for all orders up to 24kg delivered to most of mainland UK. All Highland (including much of Aberdeenshire) & Islands postcodes, Ireland (north and south) and EC countries are subject to varying extra charges and these are added by our programme before the payment process. Please check these are acceptable before agreeing to pay as they can be high relative to the cost of the seed potatoes.
Scottish seed potatoes are available, after a period of post harvest curing and cold storage, from December through to May, with our busiest months now being January and February. We will again be selling chitted Sarpo potatoes for second cropping from June to July. Orders are despatched in order of receipt as variety availability allows. Some varieties are not available until January, couriers prefer we don't add to busy Xmas traffic and December weather has been foul in recent years. We have taken the decision to delay potato dispatch until January at the earliest. It will be important to unwrap the tubers from any plastic wrapping as soon as possible. Delivery drivers will be asked to leave in an appropriate place if you give suitable instruction in the notes facility.

 First Earlies      Second Earlies      Early Maincrop      Late Maincrop      Conservation Potatoes