Bought potatoes can’t compete with home grown, freshly dug ones straight from the garden. Most households use a lot, so unless you’ve got a big vegetable garden or an allotment, it’s best to concentrate on early, or new potatoes. If you’re really short of space you can even grow them in a growbag or large pot. In a cool greenhouse, growbag or pot grown earlies will produce a crop for a late Easter. And if you want a real novelty, you can even have your own new potatoes for Christmas.
Varieties
Good early varieties are:
- Rocket (extra early) White skin and flesh. Firm waxy texture. Good for boiling or steaming.
- Concorde (first early). A disease-resistant variety with pink skin and yellow flesh. Good flavour, suitable for scraping and boiling or salads.
- Arran Pilot (first early). A traditional favourite with white skin and flesh, a waxy texture and good flavour. Good for boiling or steaming. Attractive mauve tipped white flowers.
- Pentland Javelin (first early). White skin and flesh. Soft waxy texture. Good for boiling, steaming or salads.
- Premiere (first early). Yellow skin and flesh. A waxy potato with a translucent, moist feel. Stays firm so good for salads.
- Sharpe’s Express (first early). White skin and flesh and excellent flavor but can be prone to blight. Good for boiling, steaming, salad or chips.
- Charlotte (second early). White skin and long oval shape. A little later, but is worth growing for its excellent taste and firm waxy flesh. Makes a good boiling, roasting, sautéed or salad potato.
Starting Seed Potatoes
- Don’t go for cheap seed potatoes. Look for small, evenly sized, plump tubers and shun any which are shrivelled or touched by frost.
- If you find any large ones amongst them, slice them in two with a sharp knife, making sure there are one or two “eyes” or buds on each portion and dust the cut face with sulphur powder.
- Chit seed potatoes straight away, by setting them out in an old egg tray, “rose” side up (that’s the end with most buds), and putting them in a cool but frost-free, light room (but not in direct sunlight) to sprout.
- On early varieties rub off all but the two or three best sprouts on each tuber as soon as they appear.
Cultivation of Potatoes
Plant earlies out in March (or February in a cool greenhouse), about a foot apart and 2 feet between rows in well dug soil enriched with plenty of compost or well rotted manure.
Traditionally, potatoes were earthed up in ridges as they grew to stop sunlight turning the tubers green and inedible.
Today, there’s an easier way, growing potatoes under plastic:
- Cover the prepared bed with 2 foot wide sheets of black plastic.
- Cut a cross in the sheet at each planting station.
- With a trowel, plant a potato tuber shallowly, just below the surface at each station.
- The foliage will push through the cut, but the tubers will form on the surface immediately below the plastic, shielded from the sun.
- The plastic also retains moisture, suppresses any weeds, and warms the soil to give a really early crop.
- Protect the young foliage from frost with fleece when it pokes through.
- You should be able to begin harvesting your potato crop after 9-10 weeks. Peep underneath the plastic occasionally from early June.
- To harvest, simply peel back the plastic and pick up your spuds.
- Cook immediately and enjoy!
Tony Allen - In 2004 I began my "fourth career" as a freelance writer. In my first career, after training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, I ...
