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.

Potato: Nicola - with no scab

A very clean crop of Nicola, about 1Kg from one of the later sown tubers. This year I treated the ground with sulphur powder at the rate of 15g metre before sowing. So far it seems to have done the trick, not a trace of any scab, though Nicola isn't the most scab-prone of potatoes but it does sometimes show some brown scarring where earth has attached in a lump. I'm even hopefully the early-sown ones might yield some large and clean enough for exhibiting at the Autumn show. I'll reserve judgement until I harvest some of the Rooster which were quite badly affected by scab last year.

Nicola is my favourite potato as it is so versatile. A salad type second early, it can be used early (after flowering) as a new potato, or left to attain a larger size as maincrop as it stores very well. It has dense, yellowish flesh with a lovely buttery flavour. It has smooth, fine skin and isn't as prone to scab in my soil as some varieties. It's slightly less prone to slugs than some, perhaps because it is denser. Larger tubers bake well too, though be very careful to look for any tiny slug holes before baking. I'm going to miss this variety; I'm not sure I can bring myself to use dithane to control blight.

It scores 3/9 for Blight resistance, 7/9 for scab and 8/9 for potato eelworm.