Spuds in by Good Friday!

I managed to plant all the potatoes by Easter. Usually I like to plant a little earlier if possible (to get as much growth in before blight strikes, which seems to happen earlier each year) but the ground was simply too cold. Quite honestly I don't think it's quite warm enough yet, but growth will be rapid once we have a little more sun.

Spuds for 2010

About the only thing I can be sure of in 2010 is that I will still be eating more potatoes than usual. If nothing else they are easy to maintain if I can't do the usual intensive daily horticultural routine.

This year's spuds are already beginning to sprout (Nicola is the worst), despite the recent cold weather so good winter dormancy is something I'll be looking for in addition to blight resistance. Lady Balfour has exceptional dormancy, in addition to overall suberb disease resistance, so I'll give this a go (helped in my decision by T&M offering free postage even on heavy items over xmas)

I'd already decided on Setanta as a replacement for Rooster, and again it supposedly combines good storage qualities with greater disease resistance than it's parent, but retaining a similar dry, floury texture (I hope...)

I might try a row of Nadine just for exhibition purposes, also perhaps Romano and Picasso so that all categories are covered (with the cup in mind). I'll save my own seed of Nicola too.

Catalogue time - potatos

It's that time of year when all the catalogues have dropped through the letterbox, and stay piled up on the floor until someone either reads them or piles them up as they always look too glossy to throw away, until the nights draw in and there's little to do of an evening than sit down and fantasize about all the new F1 hybrids one might grow if one wasn't so parsimonious. This year I'm sorely tempted by T&Ms special potato catalogue, with it's attractively weird blue heritage varieties and new, blight-busting, bag-bursting super spuds.

The terrible blight of this year has prompted me to consider changing from my auto-pilot choice of spuds.I'd also like to increase the range that I grow to have more suitable exhibition varieties. However, one of the reasons I like to buy seed loose is that I don't have room for more than a couple of rows of any one variety, so only have need from between 4-8 of any single cultivar, which works out quite reasonable when bought loose from local garden centres or from bargain packs. However, I've found it more difficult to find varieties I like in recent years available from these sources.

What I need is a mixture of waxy second-early/early maincrop which can be used in late summer as 'new' boiling potatoes, but also bulk up for use as early maincrops,  and floury late maincrop for mashing and roasting. All need to be are blight, slug and scab resistant. 

Sadly, none of the waxy types are particularly blight resistant, and though Charlotte and Anya are also fine-flavoured varieties, they fall down on other qualities (scab, bruising, size, greening, shorter dormancy etc). 

Very few maincrops/late maincrops describe themselves as 'floury'. Many are only described as 'don't disintegrate on boiling' which isn't of great interest to me as I don't really like plain boiled potatoes.

On general purpose/exhibition use, there are a few that stand out:

Setanta bred from Rooster, so floury 'high dry matter' spud but with better all round qualities and higher disease resistance (including good resistance to common scab, so potentially more attractive tubers than the parent), I think I will give it a go next year.

Druid looks promising on this front. Vigourous, disease resistant, nice colour, large, even tubers that might make do for exhibition as well. However, not much detail on texture or flavour, and I've wasted space far too many un-memorable spuds in my time. Will trial if I can find a small number to try.

Orla also sounds quite appealing "Very grower friendly, it produces high yields with good baker content. It shows good foliage blight resistance and excellent tuber blight resistance." 

Red Cara also sounds good "Very resistant to a vast range of diseases and viruses. Tubers are uniform and suitable for a range of culinary uses including home chipping. It is high yielding and keeps well in storage"

Blue Danube appeals just because of the beauty of the deep purple tubers. Good resistance to blight but not so good on common scab, and susceptible to dry rot and some nematodes. No information on flavour or dormancy. 

Harmony has good exhibition qualities and dormancy but not so good on blight resistance.

Nadine also looks a promising oval white for exhibition, and has good overall disease resistance and very good yields. No description of culinary qualities though.

Potato varieties - some further thoughts.

I had considered finishing with Nicola now that blight has started affecting us regularly, but its resistance to slugs and scab is good, problems are actually greater evils as far as storage and general usefulness. As long as action is taken early enough, it seems cutting foliage/strawing down do stop the blight from affecting the crop or and the yields isn't actually affected as badly. I have tried Sante in the past but I didn't rate the culinary quality, the yields weren't spectacular either and I didn't find the disease resistance any better than Nicola, though obviously the latter is more susceptible to blight. A possible alternative is Charlotte, which is a similar type of potato with a similar season and slightly better blight resistance, but less versatile than Nicola, with a smaller average tuber size.

The only other second early/maincrop I've ever liked was a round, purple-eyed variety whose name I forget. This was the highest yielding potato I've ever grown, but it simply couldn't find it after a couple of years. I think it must have been Picasso. Whether it would be as good in this location I don't know, its susceptibility to slugs might be a bit disappointing.

Potato crop: Nicola

Dug the remaining rows of Nicola today. Exceptionally clean crop this year with very little slug damage and only a tiny bit of scab.

Yield was a little less than the Rooster, 7 kg for two rows (6  or 7 tubers) but size was good, with a number of perfect tubers of fist-size for  baking. Most of the spoiled tubers were fork-damaged. Only one plant had blighted tubers. Considering how early blight struck this season, we were lucky to have any potatoes to store at all.

I think it is definitely worth getting seed in as early as possible. The first two rows of Nicola went in a couple of weeks before Easter, and were large, fully leafed plants whilst the later sowings were just breaking.

This is the potato council's evaluation of Nicola:

"Second early maturity, high number of uniform tubers per plant, medium to long dormancy. Good resistance to common scab, potato leaf roll virus, potato virus Y and bruising. Resistant to potato cyst nematode Ro1. Medium low dry matter, good boiling qualitities" Potato Council website

Best of all, no damage done to any toads today. I did see a grass snake tail slipping silently away as I cleared the straw, maybe the toads have all been eaten.

Not sure why these won a prize, they look dreadfully uneven!

Potato Rooster

Decided to lift the 'Roosters' today. In previous years I've left them far too late, and lost an awful lot to the hole burrowers.

A good yield, about 10 kgs in total. Not bad from 7 small seed potatoes in 2 rather cramped rows. Less scabby than last year too, the sulphur had done a reasonable job, though hadn't eradicated it completely. Certainly not enough for exhibition standard, though the Nicolas were perfectly clean, and took first prize in their category today.

Best of all, no toads spiked. Putting the straw down was an excellent idea. It stopped any blight spores affecting the tubers, prevented any greening and discouraged the toads from burrowing into the soil. Most were just nestling under the straw, and were easily brushed off with it. I will leave it down until spring and hope the same applies when I come to dig then.