Cheers...freddy.
Potatoes - poor yield
Moderators: KG Steve, Chantal, Tigger, peter
Hi. Just to reinforce what others have said, I reckon steaming is the best way to cook most veg, but especially spuds. I find they never break up, and the texture is perfect when cooking new ones. Go on, try it, you might like it !
Cheers...freddy.
Cheers...freddy.
The future aint all it used to be
I'm not sure where this connection between watering and flavour has come from - does watering lead to poor flavour? Last summer was very wet here and I don't think the soil around my potatoes ever got really dry. I didn't notice any difference in flavour. I know that if I don't water thoroughly around the time when the tiny tubers are forming I will finish up with a crop containing many small potatoes that are not much use. Erratic watering needs to be avoided as this leads to lots of strangely shaped tubers which the Kitchen Lady finds difficult to peel/scrape.
John
John
The Gods do not subtract from the allotted span of men’s lives, the hours spent fishing Assyrian tablet
What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg
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What we observe is not nature itself, but nature exposed to our method of questioning Werner Heisenberg
I am a man and the world is my urinal
Hi John,
Depends on how much watering you give Potatoes. Commercially they are sold by weight so potato irrigation is used widely and these provide the nations supermarket and thus the masses with their potatoes. As home gardeners we do not have to follow the commercial growers and I for one grow for taste. If you compare potatoes taste for taste you will find that the home grown ones have a far better flavour. To me this is because they have not been artificially blown up with water in order to get that maximum yield. Commercial potatoes grown in the area around my property are never irrigated and the yield is certainly very acceptable and the taste is very good. If you taste the potatoes grown down on the river meadows which are irrigated, lets just say a lot, the flavour and texture are entirely different comparing the same varieties.
Take Maris Piper, the local fish and chip shop will not purchase those grown down on the river level because they do not make good chips but those grown alongside me do. The only difference is irrigation and the soil down by the river should be even better.
I draw my conclusion, right or wrong, from this.
JB.
Depends on how much watering you give Potatoes. Commercially they are sold by weight so potato irrigation is used widely and these provide the nations supermarket and thus the masses with their potatoes. As home gardeners we do not have to follow the commercial growers and I for one grow for taste. If you compare potatoes taste for taste you will find that the home grown ones have a far better flavour. To me this is because they have not been artificially blown up with water in order to get that maximum yield. Commercial potatoes grown in the area around my property are never irrigated and the yield is certainly very acceptable and the taste is very good. If you taste the potatoes grown down on the river meadows which are irrigated, lets just say a lot, the flavour and texture are entirely different comparing the same varieties.
Take Maris Piper, the local fish and chip shop will not purchase those grown down on the river level because they do not make good chips but those grown alongside me do. The only difference is irrigation and the soil down by the river should be even better.
I draw my conclusion, right or wrong, from this.
JB.
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Colin_M
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freddy wrote:I reckon steaming is the best way to cook most veg, but especially spuds.
Hi Freddy, JB and Alan, yes I happily steam veg whenever I can.
Since I've not tried with spuds yet, can you advise how long yours normally take to cook this way? I'd rather assumed it would be longer than boiling but guess that doesn't necessarily apply.
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alan refail
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Colin_M wrote:freddy wrote:I reckon steaming is the best way to cook most veg, but especially spuds.
Hi Freddy, JB and Alan, yes I happily steam veg whenever I can.
Since I've not tried with spuds yet, can you advise how long yours normally take to cook this way? I'd rather assumed it would be longer than boiling but guess that doesn't necessarily apply.
Generally 15 to 20 minutes (check after 15).
I have not boiled potatoes or any other vegetables for years and always cook them by steaming. The cooking times I find are almost the same as for boiling, just a bit less. And if you are using a two tier steamer, which I often do, it pays to swap the two over from time to time. Just don't put steaming beetroot on top of any other veggies or they'll all turn red!
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Mike Vogel
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Hilary, the problem for the earlies this year was that just as they were beginning to get going we had some severe frosts in mid-May. This cut the growth down and the subsequent dry weather didn't help either. I grew Kesterl, Pentland Javelin and Foremost and the yield was pathetic.
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Colin_M
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Thanks for all your suggestions - I have now tried steaming two varieties of salad poatoes and they came out ok. They took a good 25 minutes, but I think would have needed just as long if I'd boiled them.
Most of them stayed intact, though one or two burst their skins.
Most of them stayed intact, though one or two burst their skins.
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alan refail
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On the first fine, warm and partly sunny day for a long while, I dug all my potatoes today to avoid the onset of blight (just a few patches).
They might have had a very dry time in April, May and June, and a lot of rain in July, but all cropped heavily, without tubers having grown too rapidly with the rain. As an added bonus (probably thanks to the prolonged dry spell) negligible slug damage: one tuber each of Red Duke of York, Sharpe's Express and Nicola with a single slug hole each; not a single one on the three rows of Rooster.
They might have had a very dry time in April, May and June, and a lot of rain in July, but all cropped heavily, without tubers having grown too rapidly with the rain. As an added bonus (probably thanks to the prolonged dry spell) negligible slug damage: one tuber each of Red Duke of York, Sharpe's Express and Nicola with a single slug hole each; not a single one on the three rows of Rooster.