Good Friday potatoes

On our first summer, a few eyebrows were raised when the "old boys" found out we were not growing “tatties”. Our excuse was that we got the plot too late for planting potatoes but we could tell they were disappointed. To redeem ourselves, we tried to plant some “Christmas potatoes” at the end of the summer. But we lost them all in “The Big Flood - episode 1”. So last year, we were determined to grow tatties!

Potato bed, early June 07

I thought potatoes were simple things. Until I looked at the seeds catalogues. Pages and pages of them. First earlies, second earlies, early and late main crops, salad potatoes, blight resistant, eel worm resistant (what the heck is eel worm anyway?!), frost resistant, high yielder, grow better in the North, white, black, red, blue … My head was spinning!

Last year , we picked small amounts of a few varieties to experiment with, see what would grow well on our plot and which ones we like more. Well, one year on, we are still none the wiser as we lost our entire crop in "The Big Flood - episode 2". So this year is the real trial !

I got them all from Alan Romans, a family run business based in Fife. By the way, they also sell a good selection of seeds at dirt cheap prices - much recommended!

Our choice this year is:

- Red Duke of York and Duke of York for the first earlies

- Charlotte, a second early and salad potato

- Cara, a late maincrop, which I believe is blight resistant

- Pink Fir Apple, which is also a late maincrop. They are knobbly looking and a heritage variety and despite being very tasty, they are rather hard to get hold off in supermarkets or greengrocers.

- Mr Little's Yelthom Gypsy, an early maincrop but also a conservation potato. This is my "fun" potato of the year - I absolutely love the name and it is apparently the only known potato to show blue, white and red together in the skin.

Clockwise from top left corner:

Pink Fir Apple, Cara, Charlotte, Red Duke of York,

Mr Little's Yetholm Gypsy and Duke of York.

With regard to planting, there are two schools out there, the “chitters” and the “non-chitters”. Chitting potatoes means getting them to sprout before you plant them, like they do when you forget them in your veg basket. The "chitters" argue it speeds up the growing process. Last year, I didn’t chit mine, not on purpose, I simply forgot. And when I remembered it was too late. But it didn't seem to bother my potatoes too much and they grew regardless. This year I got them a bit earlier and I was a bit more organised so they have been chitted.

Once again, I decided to stick with a gardening tradition in which potatoes are planted on Good Friday. So, this Friday, the potatoes went in despite all my concerns. After all Easter is very early this year and we could still get frosts and awful weather. Although I'm glad to read that such an early Easter is not going to happen for at least another 150 years! The bed in which they went is now covered with black fabric, hopefully keeping the soil warm enough ...