Potato Picking

We had a bit of a shock at the end of June; some of the potatoes were showing signs of what appeared to be blight, despite having had two preventative sprayings with Bordeaux mixture and relatively dry calm weather for a couple of weeks.

Most worryingly it was just one variety of potato that seemed to be affected initially, not just one plant but most of the row equally. It looks as if the infection came in on the tubers and not the wind. Unfortunately, once blight has arrived there's little that can be done to stop it spreading.

We've taken up the variety where the problem started and given another spraying across the whole plot to try to control things for a week or two longer. Then I think we'll have to remove the foliage and allow the tubers to harden underground for a couple of weeks before an early harvest. If the weather stays dry we should still get an adequate crop although the Pink Fir Apple, a very late maturer and prone to blight, may not have time to make much weight.


Swift

We also cleared the plot of Swift. These first earlies mature reasonably well but there's little point in conserving them, their day has been and gone and the last tubers need to make way so that the area can be cleared.

The eating quality is only average, the value is in the extreme earliness of the crop. Next year I think we'll try my old favourite Epicure or one of the newer varieties like Orla.


Stroma

Stroma is one of our favourites, very strong plants which seem to show some blight resistance, reasonably early and clean pretty red skinned tubers which cook well.



Kestrel

Kestrel is the potato that started the trouble this year. Nearly the entire row was affected even though adjacent Stroma still looked well. However, there were signs that the problem was spreading even in the couple of days we hesitated while deciding what action to take. Kestrel is recognised as having poor blight resistance.

We've had quite variable experiences with Kestrel. The first year we grew it the potatoes were so iron hard and apparently uncookable I said I would refuse to ever grow it again, but I was persuaded to give it another try because of its excellent slug resistance (figures!) and the following crop was really quite useable, stored well and made reasonable returns.

This year we've had to hook them all out early. The yield isn't too bad considering they could have done with another month and the tubers look clean and healthy enough although the skin is very soft. But, a trial cooking has revealed that this year's spuds have a somewhat bitter aftertaste when boiled, although we didn't notice this so much when we chipped a few. The jury is still out.


Ambo

We first tried Ambo from a few odd potatoes left over from a supermarket bagged purchase when we had just taken on an allotment in Newport Pagnell and I think we've grown them every year since.

A very reliable potato, genuinely all purpose, making nice roasties, fluffy bakers, mash and salad as required. They show some blight resistance and store well too. The few in the picture are from a single plant we took up as a trial and are still quite small.


British Queen

Again one trial plant produced these tubers. They really need that extra month or six weeks to bulk up.

British Queen make the best chips, we're both agreed on it and we chipped these. Even fresh from the ground (and chipping potatoes are usually stored for a while before use) and barely mature they made a wonderful plate of golden goodness, needing little more than a sprinkle of salt. I hope we can keep the blight away long enough to get a lot of these.

A good day for...

Well, actually it's just a good day.

But I have noticed that it's a good day for photography, especially if you happen to have the sort of kit that I don't. This morning, at about 5:30 there were big deer on the lawn by the pear tree, some with antlers and then later four fish posed perfectly together in a warm patch of the pond. I didn't catch either of those spectacles but I did get some pretty summery shots. It's so lovely now the sun is back and warm enough to go naked which as regular readers will know is favourite mode of mine.


That cheered me up enough to get some chores done. First, three loads of washing.



Then, I dug a row of potatoes. This was really encouraging because we thought the crop had been ruined by blight but these Winston are mostly big and beautiful with a good yield except on the first few plants to be affected and I only put my fork through one of them!



And after that, I did a big patch of lawn mowing.



So I feel virtuous and good. They say it's going to rain again tomorrow.

The weather has been fairly diabolical for the last few days, today has been really heavy rain, so much so that there have even been leaks into the main house which is a worry. The forecast is for more of the same which is not an inspiriting thought.

Way back when I ordered the seed potatoes, some of which are already producing fine potatoes now, I asked for some micropropagated plantlets of heritage varieties. We heard nothing about them for months and then in the first week of June they finally arrived, just as Paul was away for the week doing something technical in Wales. So we're not sure how many days they were waiting for attention before he came home and found them but looking at them now I'd say that they were in pretty bad shape before they were sent.

Disappointing. I have had micro plants before but never seen them in such a state as these came in. I'm sure they all come from the same laboratories so perhaps it was just unlucky but I may not risk Alan Roman's ordering system again.



A couple of them were very small but seem to be fairly good order, the other three were clearly too tall when they were packaged for the journey and tops had been nipped off leaving the plants practically leafless. We've potted them up and expect a fair recovery but they will have been set back which will reduce their crop and prevent us from creating the good store of seed potatoes for next year we had hoped for.

Holiday Weekend

No, it wasn't a holiday for anyone else, just a long awaited visit by Paul which gave everything a festive air. And the sun came out again, which is always welcome.



We didn't get all that much done, too busy having fun but we did have a huge celebration dinner that you can read about here and took a first harvest from the potato patch. These are the results.



The whites are a variety called Swift, a recommended first early and the reds; Stroma, usually described as a second early but we've found it just as fast as Swift. Each bowl represents the crop from two plants, tiny amounts perhaps but the seed tubers were only planted about eight weeks ago. We will harvest them successionally which will allow the later plants to bulk up but there is no point in leaving earlies in the ground too long, their value is in their speed to commence the new potato season.

The later varieties are also growing well, the Ambo is in flower and the Ratte and Winston have made strong plants. We did find one diseased plant of Ratte which has been removed and as a precaution we have sprayed with Bordeaux mixture, still just allowable as an organic remedy, to discourage blight and mildew.

That still left time for a walk in the forest, where that beautiful foxglove and its friends were in full bloom.

Spuds

It's snowing in Newport Pagnell - heavily. Winter has arrived.

Anyway, yesterday I thought I'd better get to grips with the seed potato order. Last year in France I grew only two potato plants and one of those was so comprehensively diseased (and infected my entire tomato crop with blight as well) that it was a very unsuccessful experiment. The variety was Sarpo Mira, much lauded for its resistance to blight and the seed tuber for it was bought in the UK at a local garden centre from allegedly virus and disease tested stock. It may be I was unlucky, other seed tubers from the same batch, even the second plant in France, showed little sign of blight until the end of the season but this experience and others with cheap garden centre stock has made me determined to get hold of better grade seed for this year.

There is a nice chap in the potato enthusiast's crowd, Alan Romans. We've met him briefly and exchanged a few words at a potato day at HDRA in Coventry a few years back. He lives for spuds it seems and his knowledge has made him in great demand with the big commercial consumers like supermarkets to give them an edge when identifying heritage and speciality varieties for their top end sales. Now he's cashed in on this popularity and started his own online seed potato company in Fife. This is the place I've chosen to buy the bulk of my potato goods from this year.

The varieties chosen are a mix of our old favourites and some pin sticking by myself because as it's the first year we will try a serious planting in France we're not certain which types will do best in the conditions. So the favourites are Ambo and Stroma, with Swift as our first early. Then I got the pin out and picked Winston as a second early on the basis that Alan says it will make an early baker and Ratte because it's similar to one of our all time favourites Pink Fir Apple but a little earlier and I have an eye to minimising blight damage. It seems my pin was faulty because when the man got home I was informed we'd tried Winston before and it was no good and that he didn't rate Ratte anywhere near as good at PFA because it didn't peel well. All I can say to that is too late, mate.

In addition I bought a pack of potato microplantlets, just one each of the varieties Aura, Salad Blue, Highland Burgundy Red, Fortyfold and Shetland Black. We've grown all these in the past except Aura. Microplants are a way of distributing virus free clones of old varieties that are no longer in commercial production. It is usually impossible to get seed tubers of these varieties.

Salad Blue is a wonderful coloured potato, blue fleshed throughout. It's really quite early cropping and left makes huge tubers which unfortunately are very prone to slug damage. This is a hazard in a dark skinned and fleshed potato so I prefer to take them small before the slugs can get at them. Highland Burgundy Red (if that is in fact its true name) is beautifully crimson red fleshed, sometimes with a band of white just under the skin. It matures rather later than the Salad Blue. Both these sorts can be steamed, boiled or baked although the Blues are a bit mushy and tend to go grey if boiled hard. The Reds make an excellent roast potato and both sorts make great crisps - a huge bowl of red, white and blue crisps is an excellent accompaniment to pre-dinner drinks.

Fortyfold is a very old variety and does indeed produce a huge crop, but the potatoes are small with deep eyes which is a pain when peeling. We call them the soup potato because they cook down quickly in soup, making a rich thickness. This tendency makes them of little use as a boiled potato but with a bit of care good mash can be obtained.

Shetland Black is a black skinned, yellow fleshed potato from the islands. Again the tubers are quite small but the flavour is very good and the texture of the cooked potatoes appealing.

These five plantlets won't produce much to eat this year but will provide seed potatoes for crops next year.

Despite the problems last year, we've also found Sarpo Mira a good bet if not a great potato and would have bought some of those too but because of some arrangement between Mr. Romans and Thompson and Morgan he's not stocking these himself. Well, I tried, I followed the link to the T&M site and chose some spuds but the order seemed a little sparse and I thought I'd grab a few seeds to go with them. Imagine my surprise when I found that my e-shopping baskets couldn't be amalgamated (or no way that I could see). It was so annoying I dropped the lot. I was never a fan of T&M and their multiple shopping site experience was frustrating and unproductive. I shan't go back. Perhaps Alan, if you're reading, you could tip them the wink.