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.