potato help needed

[suci07]

I got my allotment in October and have been clearing it.Getting it ready for the spring. I want to grow potatoes. I want new potatoes,and potatoes for mash and roast,and potatoes for baking.Ideally i would like to be self-sufficient in potatoes,at least, for most of the year.the thing is i didn't realise just how many varieties there are.As a beginner, there are just too many to choose from in the seed catalogues.So, what are your favourites? and what advice can you give me? Although i have grown peas and sweetcorn in the garden for the last 2 years this is my first allotment. all help appreciated.

Sue

[peter]

Ultra Early - Lady Christl.
1st Early - Foremost and Homeguard.
Second Early - Charlotte & Romano.
Early Maincrop - Nicola, Maris Piper and King Edward.
Late Maincrop - Arran Victory and Dunbar Standard.

The later the harvest, the more likly it is to succumb to diseases. I have grown all the above, but have never yet had a satisfactory maincrop harvest.

I have found that Second Early are the best trade off for me between weight, size, keepability and damage. Nicola and Charlotte especially.

Bear in mind some spill across the divisions and a first early can be treated as a maincrop, you just leave it longer to digging up.

The best approach is to write down your plots characteristics, e.g. clay, cold, damp and lots of slugs, then get on Thompson & Morgans or Edwin Tuckers websites and http://www.tuckers-seeds.co.uk/productl ... 1catalogue go through the varieties selecting the most suitable.

If you have a commercial spud grower nearby select for blight resistance, if the plot was grass select for wireworm resistance.

I would honestly say ignore everything I say about what suits me, take some trial packs and keep notes on what you liked and how it did. What you like might no do as well as what you don't. Try and get a mix of sorts, floury, waxy etc in each harvest-type.

Above all be prepared to be disappointed, blight can take the lot, but remember when you sit down with a big bowl of first earlies generously daubed with butter, a plate with a big pinch of salt and a large glass of cold milk, that nothing will ever beat that taste.

[Alison]

My top favourite is Red Duke of York, which is an early spud but continues to grow bigger if you leave it. Excellent flavour for new potatoes and utterly brilliant for roast spuds. Picasso is an early maincrop and for me in SE Wales it is able to be harvested in mid-August, which reduces the blight problem. It mashes excellently and should produce big spuds for baking.
Roseval is a second early which produces lots of amazingly red spuds with delicious yellow waxy flesh, excellent for salads. I am trying Lady Christl for flavour and extra-earliness this year.
People say spuds are cheap enough in the shops not to bother growing your own, but how could one possibly miss that most exciting moment when you dig up the first ones!
Alison.

[STEVE PARTRIDGE]

Hi suci07, congratulations on getting an allotment you will find it very rewarding. My advice as to which varieties of Potatoes to grow would be to ask fellow or neighbouring plot holders which varieties they grow, if they have had their allotment for a few years they would have discovered what grows and performs well in the soil type that you have at your allotment site. Then in future seasons you can try or trial different varieties to suit your taste and needs, have a good New Year and all the best for 2007, regards Steve.

http://www.myallotments.com

[carlseawolf]

congradulations on your allotment,
all i would say on this sublect is go with the flow 'what other plot holder or the local farmers are producing must work in your area.
got my plot this year too, and putting a few spuds in just to grow something in the ground while i sought out the rest of the plot but in future years i will not be growing them as they are cheap enough to buy and dedicate the ground to more expensive crops .
yes i know they taste better straight from the ground but we use a sack of potatoes every fortnight so would have to dedicate a vast proportion of the plot to potatoes and if blight did strike thats a whole years production of veg gone.( to many eggs in one basket)
the thing with an allotment is what you grow is up to you ,but a mixed bag of veg is better than single cropping as if only 50% of your crops get deseased you still get something to eat ( and potato blight is the same as tomato blight and once got it will destroy your crops and i don't know if it travels very far but i can guess that the plots next to you will grow tomatoes or potatoes and if they get it you might)
good luck on your adventure
www.freewebs/carlseawolf

[carlseawolf]

just an after thought,
in our allotment rules a new one got pasted this year and basically reads if you are suspected of using your allotment to grow produce to sell on as commercial profit then allotment can be taken off you( it came about as one plot holder was growing 200 cabbages and was single) so check the rules!

[oldherbaceous]

Welcome suci07, theres a lot of good advice there, Steve's point about asking your fellow plot holders advice on what one's do well on your allotment site, is really worth taking up, it saves a lot of years with potato crops that are not doing as well as they should, you should still get a large selection to choose from.
My favorite second early is Kestrel, a good all round potato, but great for roasting.
Cara is good for baking.

Make sure you don't buy more seed then you need, and then try cramming them in, they do far better at the right spacings.
Good luck with your allotment next season.

[Cider Boys]

Hello Sue

I do wonder why other growers are surprised when the suffer from potato blight, I have been involved with growing potatoes on a small commercial scale for many years and accepting that blight will occur is unfortunately all part of the process. Even the organic certifiers accept that their members also spray against the blight. Spraying will help by affording protection but there is no cure for potato blight.

We grow all the usual quick maturing rubbish such as Rocket and Swift since early crops get the price premium but their taste is not as good and I would recommend Maris Bard for your earlies and Desiree for your maincrop.

Best of luck

Barney

[Johnboy]

Hi Barney,
I agree wholeheartedly with your choice. I would add Maris Piper to the list of main crop.
I no longer have to grow main crop potatoes but the contractors sow Nadine which is a second early as the main crop which means they are not planted until late April to mid-May and they are harvested in late September with some fantastic results. I simply gleam what is left of 60 acres and easily manage my 8 rather full paper sacks of spuds which is enough to see me through until the next years Earlies.
Nadine does everything, boil, mash, roast and chip and stores very well.
JB.

[maree t]

nobody has mentioned the sarpo family of pots which are blight resistant. i have grown them for the last couple of years and had good results. the flavour is nice and you can ignore the blight problem. i grow lots of different early types but my winter store will be made up of sarpos again this year.
good luck.
i also would recommend pink fir apple for earlies they taste great and can be left in to grow on if you want.

[Sue]

I tried Anya this year - they are a cross from Pink Fir Apple, but ready much earlier so you can harvest them before blight strikes. Got loads of small but really tasty salad potatoes.

Sue

[alan refail]

Welcome to potato growing. Once you have got used to your own crops you will never want to buy potatoes again - so you will need to try to be self-sufficient.

You have had so many suggestions that you will soon be back where you started - with a bewildering choice. I won't add to the problem by listing all the varieties I have tried over the years. Just a few comments (helpful, I hope).

Asking neighbouring plotholders what they grow is not always the answer. It depends on their tastes and attitudes to growing/eating, which may well not match your own. I remember years ago when I had allotments in Leeds, all the "old boys" swore there was only one good maincrop - Pentland Crown - a useless potato I decided after growing it once. Many others swore by Rocket as the first early - it turned out "super early, super tasteless".

Peter suggested looking at Edwin Tuckers list - now on line. This is very good advice. It may bewilder you again with the choice available, but there is very useful information on suitability for different cooking methods as well as resistance to disease. But remember, different results from different soils.

Finally, if I were banned from growing my usual 15 varieties and could grow only one variety, it would have to be Nicola planted as early as possible. Super tasting new potatoes, then a heavy maincrop which keep very well if kept cool and dark. It is a waxy potato, but will make good chips and roasts well and makes good mash, unless you crave a floury potato for mash.

Blwyddyn newydd dda and best of luck with your growing.

[Jenny Green]

Alan Romans book on potatoes is very good:
http://www.alanromans.co.uk/product.asp ... &PT_ID=205
You can get it cheaper from Amazon at the moment.

[Cider Boys]

There is an excellent article in this January’s Kitchen Garden magazine called - Grow Perfect Potatoes - that would be of interest to prospective potato growers.

Barney

[alan refail]

Hi all
For all the latest technical info on 4,000+ (!) varieties, have a look at
http://www.europotato.org/menu.php
Take your pick and good growing.

Cyntaf ei og cyntaf ei gryman
First with his harrow first with his sickle