king edward's potatoes 0 - slugs 4

A cold winter evening. A bowl of delicious mashed potatoes. Butter and milk the only additives - or a little cream to be truly decadent. A great accompaniment to your winter plate.

All potato varieties are different but at their best organic potatoes deliver better quality and higher dry matter than intensively produced spuds.

One of the best varieties for mashing is King Edward's so here we have some home grown, pealed and ready for cooking. There are said to be two kinds of potato - 'waxy' or 'floury' varieties. For a great 'mashing' potato the floury varieties are best and King Edward's is the name we all know as the king of flory varieties.

They delivered a beautiful creamy white mash that was firm and fluffy with lots of flavour.

But. And here's the big BUT...

Grown organically in our light loam their yield was poor and the damage from slugs was the worst we've had from any variety. Look at the waste! Slug damage was like was like spud armageddon! They'd been shot to pieces by the slimy enemy.

This was a poor yielding potato year for us. The ground was too dry in June when the tubers were growing and we didn't water. Even usually reliable varieties yielded badly in contrast to last year when we saw a bumper harvest.

But some varieties lend themselves to organic methods better than others and King Edward's are not such a variety.

Kestrel remains the most reliable variety delivering waxy tubers that have good flavour and reasonable slug resistance.

Our search goes on for a floury variety that will rival Kestrel.

frost damage on potatoes

Our allotment is south facing, but the slope we are on creates a problem. Frost is icy cold air - and its freezing fingers find their way down the slope touching new growth as it goes by.

Here we see the telltale signs of the effects of frost on potato leaves.

Not life threatening, but enough to retard the growth of the new shoots that will eventually pump starch into the tubers down below.

The answer is to cover the potatoes. We have been able to do this with our early potatoes but we have too many second early and maincrop to cover.

I am hoping that the last of the late frosts is soon.

potatoes in!

Traditionally, gardeners have always planted their potatoes on Good Friday. A national holiday, Good Friday is thus a key milestone in the gardening year.

We had already planted two rows of First Early Colleen and one row of First Early Edzell Blue. These are under a fleece cloche to stop icy winds and frosts getting to their tender shoots. The warm duvet of their protection should speed their growth, giving us early early potatoes!

On Sunday we planted:

• Four rows Second Early Nicola (an excellent salad potato)
• Four rows Second Early Kestrel (ideal for jacket potato)
• Four rows Second Early King Edward (ideal for mashing)
• Three rows maincrop Pink Fir Apple (in a good year - the greatest salad potato)

to complete the bed. I have 'earthed' the potatoes (drawn the soil up into ridges) in the traditional manner to protect shoots against late frosts. They will need more 'earthing' as shoots emerge.

This completes one quarter of the allotment and it feels great to say that!

No dig gardening

We have had our allotment for ten years, and our gardening practice has steadily developed over that time.

Take the preparation of the ground for potatoes as an example. Our soil is a light but fertile loam.

Ten years ago, I would dig the entire bed over, chucking in forkfuls of manure as I went.

Then I moved to adding the manure to the surface and then going over the ground, forking the manure in.

Two years ago we had moved to

our version of raised beds and I only dug over the compacted strips between beds and then mulched the entire bed with compost.

This year I have only mulched the entire bed with compost, leaving the soil undisturbed. The compacted strips between the beds have been mulched with leaves throughout the year, as some compensation to our worm population as we walk over their homes.

When we began, our potato harvest was often badly affected by slug damage. Perhaps the move from rich manure to compost enriched with manure has reduced this damage , or perhaps it is a judicious choice of varieties or - none of the above! Gardening is a complex business!

The reason for the move to mulching and not disturbing the soil is out of respect to our worm population. Worms excrete a gel as they make their burrows that is nature's own fertiliser. By not disturbing the sol and by mulching, we hope to increase the worm population, and therefore the fertility of the soil.

Of course, this is further evidence, if it were needed, that we are in the left field of organic gardening. I get the impression that we are introduced to new plot holders as the oddities!

One clear advantage of not digging is the time saved. I wrote yesterday about the slow start to the season. Two hours of barrowing compost and spreading saw our potato bed prepared and ready to go! I like that kind of gardening!

potato harvest - kestrel

Potato harvest is one of my favourite times in the garden. The small child emerges from within me and I allow myself to be amazed as forkful after forkful of big, golden, tubers emerge from the soil where a wizened tuber was planted in the spring.

We grow our own potatoes because you can really taste the difference. Buying organic potatoes each week can be costly - it is great to have our own available for seven or eight months each year.

I have already reported on my disappointment with Sharpes Express as an early potato.

What about the second earlies?

Well, I bring good tidings.

Our favourite variety is Kestrel and once again, it did not let us down.

Our potato bed had hosted grazing rye over the winter. This was hoed off and a thick mulch of compost enriched with rotted manure applied to the soil surface.

The weather has been good for potatoes. although cold winds slowed things in the spring, we have had a good mix of warm weather and rain. Although outdoor tomatoes were badly affected by potato blight, the potatoes themselves seemed to hold on.

Kestrel is a second early. It has rounded tubers, a creamy skin and pretty, purple colouration around the eyes. Its flesh is waxy and yellow, making it an excellent potato for oven roasting or boiling. I think it works less well as a mashed potato, where floury varieties win. This year, the tubers were of good size, and some were very large. There were very few very small potatoes that could not be used. There was negligible slug damage, tubers were clean and we did not suffer too badly from blight although a small number of tubers had rot.

30 kg or 67 lbs of potatoes were bagged from 3kg of seed potato tubers sown. Those pictured are in their unwashed state.

Kestrel is a variety that we have been using for about ten years - and as we have discarded other varieties, this has remained a firm favourite.

first early potatoes: sharpes express

We've been without our own grown potatoes now since February or March. So, the lifting of the first, first earlies a few weeks ago was eagerly awaited. A new variety to us too, and a traditional old variety as well: Sharpes Express.

Good yield, clean tubers, get them home, let's cook them.

And then the disappointment. Sharpes Express is a floury new potato that over boils easily. It has very poor flavour. I like waxy new potatoes that don't overboil and have a lovely strong 'new potato' flavour.

These are best par boiled, rolled in olive oil and home grown, crushed garlic and finished in a red hot oven.

Or, in other words: try another variety next year!

a wildlife friendly potato plot

By the middle of May, the potatoes needs have been met: are all earthed up. It is time to check that the needs of wildlife are met in the busy plot.

So, look carefully and you'll see that I've transplanted verbascum, foxgloves and borage between the ridges to attract insects. Primroses have finished flowering and will be split and transplanted around the allotment when I get a minute. The cowslips are heavy with seedpods and I hope to see lots of seedlings next year.

The finishing touch will be to plant African marigolds between the ridges. They will be another insect favourite and their roots exude a chemical that prevents eelworm. That's if we can bring the plants on enough to plant out after this cold weather.

first early potato

In days gone by, Good Friday always meant one gardening job: plant the potatoes. Good Friday is a bank holiday and this gave the time gardeners needed to get their potatoes in.

Holiday patterns change and time available too, but we stick to that old routine. On Friday, i planted:
Kestrel (Second early) 6 rows
Maxine Second early) 1 row
Nicola (Second early) 5 rows
Pink Fir Apple (Maincrop) 4 rows.

I had planted the Shapes Express (First early) potatoes under fleece cloche protection a few weeks back, and here is one of the little beauties just appearing.

When I began gardening in my own garden in 1978, I remember the excitement for me of seeing my first potatoes appear. I haven't lost it.

new potatoes

A spell of mild, sunny weather has warmed the mid-March soil. Compost has been spaded onto the ground to be incorporated by worms.......... We are ready to plant our first early potatoes.

We have tried many different varieties of potato and have settled on Kestrel or Osprey as our favourite second early and Pink Fir Apple as our favourite (if wayward) maincrop salad potato.

This year we are trying Sharpes Express as our first early. Other varieties of first early have just not achieved that happy combination of flavour and texture we are looking for. So Sharpes Express, a good old variety, has been recommended and will be tried this year.

To get get a good early crop we have covered the ground with fleece. This should keep the soil warm and prevent frost damage when the foliage comes through.

potato heaven

'The Cox of the kitchen garden' was how Lawrence Hills described his favourite potato, Record. Hills was a writer rather than a doer, and so missed out on what is, by some distance, the best potato variety. This is Pink Fir Apple.
It is the oldest variety sold, dating back to 1850 when it was grown in France. Although modern varieties have often improved on old ones and replaced them, the longevity of this variety tells us something about its popularity and success.

It is a quirky spud as you can see: very knobbly.
As a maincrop, is in the soil later in the season, making it more prone to the twin perils of the potato gardener: potato blight and slug damage.
So, some years the crop is pathetic. This year has been quite good. This is what they look like at lifting. Believe me, they do look prettier once washed and scrubbed. It is a wonderful salad potato, delicious hot and utterly irresistible cold.

The odd shape of the tubers may be the reason that supermarket shoppers never get to taste it. This is a great pity because Pink Fir Apple has the highest dry matter content of any potato.
This makes it impossible to overboil, and dense and satisfying to eat.

Family always ask for it by name at this time of year, and who can blame them?

Sauted, they would be served in potato heaven.

the rhythm of life

The lifting of potatoes. The rhythm of the year is marked by such events and is the better for it.

And each year it is as new as the first time.

This year has been quite a good one for potatoes. We favour Kestrel as our main potato because it has some disease resistance and its tubers are dense and yellow when grown organically. Tubers are round with pretty purple eyes. They are a great tasting potato - the most important factor!!!!

Pictured is this years crop. Although the size of the tubers was not enormous, neither were there the masses of tiny tubers that are useless. And very little slug damage.

I usually haul them home and leave them to dry for a day before bagging. Wet soil on the tubers shortens their storage life. Washing also shortens their life and I believe reduces flavour.

But this year the tubers were quite dry as I lifted them. I bagged them into used paper sacks and they will be stored until the Nicola second earlies and the maincrop Pink Fir Apple have been used.

second cropping potatoes

Still away, but just betting that these spare Nicola potatoes, that had been saved from spring planting and popped into holes two weeks ago, are now doing brilliantly.
They will grow until the end of the season, and then be left in the soil. I hope to be able to lift some new potatoes for Christmas dinner!!!!

Back soon!!

Rob

volunteers

Thoroughness. That's a quality I value.

I have a picture of myself as being thorough in the garden. I work systematically and methodically.

The evidence of last year's potato crop always creates waves of self-doubt in me. I carefully sift through the soil in August, lifting every potato tuber and ensuring that nothing is left behind.

Then, in the spring, the veneer peels away, as potatoes begin to grow everywhere they shouldn't.

Potatoes that are left in the soil are quaintly termed 'volunteers'. I can imagine my forbears, as 'Diggers' in the English Civil War cultivating parkland appropriated from the aristocracy, using the same language.

I cleared two raised beds of their overwintering green manure crop of field beans at the weekend and discovered all of these 'volunteers' growing away quite happily. One was slug damaged but the others were fine and eaten roasted when I got home.

So, strangely, the 'volunteers' made me think. We finished our last stored potatoes in February. They were getting wizened and wrinkled in their sacks. But here, in May, their siblings are pretty much as fresh as they were in August.

Perhaps I have to return to the old idea of the potato clamp for storing next time.

february ..... waiting for proper gardening

There's a sense of everything waiting to begin down on the allotment.

In the foreground broad beans and green manure field beans are coming through winter well.

Brassicas have been up to their usual tricks. Why can't we grow decent brussels? But the early purple sprouting broccoli is looking strong, but not yet ready to crop.
Spinach is finishing - but that is a bonus for the bantams who enjoy reaching up to peck at it as it hangs from the roof of the run. Great necksercise!

The next job is to prepare the potato bed. Last year we moved to this raised bed system but didn't feel that worked for potatoes. It wasn't the best use of space. So, there is a mountain of well-rotted compost ready and as soon as time allows, this will be incorporated into the soil and the whole turned into potato paradiso. Lots of potash rich organic matter into the soil and then the earlies go in. And then ------ rows of dark green leaves emerge from the soil and the feeling that spring has sprung.

Growing potatoes - proper gardening.

Baking potatoes

The annual potato harvest came early this year.
Sodden ground brought our second early potato Kestrel to an end four weeks early. Kestrel tubers are quite round and have purple eyes set in yellow skin. When cut, the organically grown ones have satisfying dense yellow flesh. For those who can say these things with a straight face, it is a very pretty potato!

Advancing potato blight would have got them anyway in this terrible gardening summer. Blight has ruined our maincrop potatoes and killed the second-cropping ones planted a short while ago. Tomatoes are also being affected - being in the same plant family.

But, surprise, surprise the tubers lifted were not as disappointing as I had feared. Many were of a reasonable size and there were far fewer of the very small potatoes than we usually have. And almost no slug damage! Of course, growing on an allotment, the lifting of potatoes is public and an opportunity for comment. John came by and commented on how small the tubers were in comparison to his own Kestrel, which apparently achieved the size of small pumpkins.

My normal routine is to lift them for storing at the end of August. The tubers are left to dry in the sunshine for a few hours and then bagged.

This year, the potatoes had to be dredged from parts of the allotment. I'm sure that I have left many tubers in the soil and know that I spiked several because they were so hard to see in the sludge. You always seem to spike the biggest!

Today they are sunbathing on the patio before being bagged.

But, as they say, there are no problems, only opportunities and challenges.

• Kestrel seem to have done better than some other varieties. It has certainly been our most consistent performer over many years and will remain our main potato.
  
• Lifting the potatoes early is probably the reason for the limited slug damage. I'll try and remember that next year and lift before August.
  
• And the importance of watering has been confirmed again. Potato yields are increased by watering. Local farmers irrigate their potato fields constantly - and with good commercial reason. If I only had time!
• I'll limit the number of rows of maincrop Pink Fir Apple next year. Maincrop are always vulnerable to blight because their foliage (haulm) is standing late in the season, when blight is worst.