potato « TopVeg – growing veg,fruit&herbs

April 27, 2011

Benefits of Early Planting Potatoes under Polythene

Filed under: potato — Tags: early, planting, polythene — TopVeg @ 12:13 pm

Our Maris Bard potatoes are showing the benefits of planting early under polythene.

maris-bard-9wks-after-plant

The soil warmed up under the polythene and the seed potatoes emerged quickly.
Once the leaf was out the plants grew more quickly.
These potatoes were planted with only a shallow covering of soil, so that they warmed up more quickly, and emerged sooner.

new-potato-developing

This early initial development promises an early harvest! Potatoes are already the size of a marble!

Maris Bard Potatoes

The potatoes are covered over if there is a chance of frost. The leaves can be severely damaged or killed by frost, which would reduce the benefits achieved of early planting under polythene.

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April 22, 2011

Plant Potatoes!

Filed under: potato — Tags: plant, potato — TopVeg @ 8:25 am

It must be time to plant potatoes!

Folk lore dictates that potatoes are planted on Good Friday. Good Friday was the first day the working man would have off between Christmas and Easter. He was keen to plant potatoes at the first opportunity because they were a staple food for his family.

plant-potato-with-chits-upwards

Folk law also states that

in Northern Ireland you plant potatoes on St Patrick’s day and dig them up on the 12th July.
or.. on the nearest full moon to St.Patrick’s Day (16 March 2011) plant the first earlies

plant-potato-in-hole

So, it is up to you to choose which bit of folk lore you are going to follow when it comes to planting potatoes!

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April 18, 2011

Maris Bard Potatoes are Growing

Filed under: potato — Tags: maris bard — TopVeg @ 6:30 pm

The Maris Bard potatoes planted in February are growing well. The early planting gamble has paid off, so far!

Bard-17-april-2011

A polytunnel was placed over the potatoes as soon as they were planted, and they were planted in a dip, which will have sheltered them further.

MarisBardApril17

Click this link to buy some Maris Bard potatoes.

The Maris Bard Potato variety are growing well in the vegetable garden.

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March 12, 2011

Spunta Potato Variety

Filed under: potato — Tags: variety — TopVeg @ 9:54 pm

The variety of potatoes called Spunta is a second early.
Spunta potatoes have:

long tubers
shallow depth of eyes
white skin
light yellow flesh
good resistance to late blight on foliage

Don has contacted TopVeg to say:

“ they taste really good, too. I am off to buy some Spunta seed today. The local farmers tipped me to place the starts in a lightproof box for about two weeks to get them to sprout. Then plant them. The only reason why they are not more widely grown is short storage time, so I grow them in planting stages throughout the growing season and consume them before they can go bad. I had fresh potatoes through January. They grow quickly.”

Thank you Don for sharing your experience of the Spunta potato variety.

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March 4, 2011

Early (or new) potato varieties

Filed under: potato — Tags: early, new, potatoes, variety — TopVeg @ 8:13 pm

Early (or new) potato varieties are planted from January to March and are ready for digging from May-July.
Second earlies are planted between February and May and harvested from July to October.

Examples of early potato varieties are:
Ultra-Early Potato – Lady Christl

LadyChrstll-new-potatoes

* high yielding
* numerous uniform attractive tubers
* good all round disease resistance, although it is slightly susceptible to Foliage Blight
* excellent cooking qualities & great flavour

Extra Early Salad Potato – Rocket

rocket-potatoes

* firm, waxy texture tubers
* good for chipping
* responds well under polythene
* best under long day length conditions of Northern Europe

Very early – Winston

* good yields
* bold white tubers
* a very short growing season
* good drought and heat tolerance
* powdery scab resistance
* masher, chips,bake,roast

First Early Potato – Sharpes Express

* low resistance to dry rot, late blight on foliage and late blight on tubers

First Early Potato – Red Duke of York

* low resistance to late blight on foliage, late blight on tubers, common scab, potato leafroll virus and potato virus Yo .

First Early Potato – Maris Bard

Maris-Bard-new-potatoes

TopVeg favourite!

* high yielding and early bulking
* good resistance to potato virus Y, gangrene, potato leaf roll virus, drought, damage and bruising
* moderately susceptible to spraing, powdery scab
* susceptible to potato cyst nematode
* medium dry matter with good boiling and frying quality
* good all round cooker

Second Early Potato – British Queen

* round tubers
* white skin

Second Early Potato – Charlotte

charlotte potato

* moderate yields
* uniform, smooth skinned tubers
* high resistance to foliage and tuber blight
* susceptible to potato cyst nematode
* medium dry matter
* waxy cooked texture
* salad potato

Second Early Potato – Kestrel

kestrel-potato-variety

* good yields of very attractive, long oval, coloured tubers
* good all round cooking quality
* good chipping potential, particularly early in the season

Second Early Potato – Edzell Blue

* heritage variety
* very floury texture
* mashes & bakes well, though difficult to boil
* best known blue- skinned variety

Early (or new) potato varieties mature in 8 to 10 weeks, so are the first to be ready for eating.

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March 1, 2011

Planting Potatoes 2011

Filed under: potato — TopVeg @ 12:08 pm

We started planting Maris Bard seed potatoes on 12 February 2011, not because conditions were ideal, but because work was taking Mike abroad, & he would be away for 4 weeks.

Luckily the soil had been covered with a plastic sheet since late November. So the rain had been kept off and the soil was quite dry.

cultivating

The sheet was taken off, and the soil was cultivated with a rotovator, and a wonderful seed bed appeared!

preparing-ground

Two rows were then measured out.

distance-between-rows

Each row was marked out, so that seed potatoes were planted 12in (30cm) apart in the row.

potato-rows-marked-out

A hole was made at each planting position and the seed potato was dropped in with the rose uppermost.

seed-potato-in-hole

Bard-seed-going-in-hole

PlantingPotatoSeed2

The planted potato seed was covered with a shallow layer of soil. The furrows are left, with the covered seed in the bottom, so that the seed has some protection from the walls of the furrow. These walls will be used to cover (ridge up) the potato shoots as they grow.

Bubble wrap was laid over the soil to keep the soil warm and a polytunnel now covers the whole row. The risk of planting potatoes so early in 2011 is that they will get frosted – so watch this space!

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October 26, 2010

Challenger Potato Variety

Filed under: potato — Tags: potato.variety — TopVeg @ 7:58 pm

The new potato variety Challenger offers a high yielding alternative to Maris Piper.

The main characteristics of Challenger are:

early main crop variety
used as a French fry variety
delicious baked
good texture
good taste
produces a high number of tubers
needs fertile soil
best planted no closer than 14in (35.5cm) apart
ready for lifting in late summer
suitable for long-term storage

potatoes---challenger

The Challenger potato tuber is:

a long oval
yellow skinned
with light yellow flesh

Warning: Challenger potatoes have a low resistance to blight, eelworm and scab.

3-challenger-potatoes

Challenger is a medium-late main crop potato variety with good all round kitchen use, particularly chipping.

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October 23, 2010

Purple Majesty Potatoes

Filed under: potato — Tags: antioxidants, health, potato — TopVeg @ 8:05 pm

Purple Majesty Potatoes contain up to ten times more health-giving anti-oxidants than conventional white potatoes.

Characteristics of Purple Majesty Potatoes:

purple flesh
satiny purple skin
high in anthocyanins, an antioxidant
oblong tubers – good for chips
resistant to most viruses, susceptible to blackleg & dry rot
medium to late season potato
good for short-term storage only
high yielding

Purple Majesty Potatoes are fun to eat as they are purple even when cooked!

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October 9, 2010

Potato blight spreads in warm wet weather

Filed under: potato — Tags: blight, potato — TopVeg @ 8:49 pm

TopVeg has (inadvertently) demonstrated that potato blight spreads in warm wet weather.

Last week was warm and wet, and for some reason a cloche had been put over half the potato row, so covering those potato leaves and keeping the rain off.

blight-in-uncovered-potatoes

The covered potatoes are healthy,

healthy-potato-leaf

but those plants left out in the rain have been decimated.

blighty-potato-row

This all happened in a week, and it demonstrates that blight flourishes in warm wet weather, and it is really worth applying a protective spray to potato crops.

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July 25, 2010

Cooking Vales Emerald Potatoes

Filed under: potato — Tags: cooking, Vales Emerald — TopVeg @ 12:56 pm

Cooking Vales Emerald potatoes by boiling has become disappointing.

The Vales Emerald grown in the garden cooked well when they were small and new. They remained firm and bright when boiled.

Vales Emerald are a cross between Maris Peer and Charlotte. Charlotte scores 4 on the waxy / floury scale, staying firm when cooked, making it an excellent salad potato. Charlotte can also be very successfully sauted and even roasted in its skin for a firm ‘roast’ potato. So it seems that Vales Emerald inherits the cooking qualites of Charlotte when young.

However, as the Vales Emerald grow older & bigger, these cooking qualities seem to disappear, and the potatoes break up when boiled, almost getting lost in the cooking water.

Has anyone else had problems cooking Vales Emerald potatoes?

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