Gunners over on Selfsufficientish has asked for advice on whether potato varities should only be used for their recommended purpose or simply used as you wish.
While the general purpose, main-crop white potato varieties can certainly be used for any style of cooking, I’ve found that for the very best results it’s worth using specific potato varities.
At the same time, however, before rushing out and buying eight to 10 different varieties of seed potato, it’s vital to keep local growing conditions in mind, along with the period of time the potatoes will be stored.
This year, our main-crop potato varieties were Milva, Cara and Verity (all from organic seed potatoes) and Pentland Dell (non-organic).
Milva produced a vast yield of very big yellow potatoes. They’re waxy, boil well, and are excellent eaten hot or cold. They have high blight and scab resistance. They store well. And when I say vast yield, I’m talking almost twice as much by weight per plant as Cara - which is a heavy cropper.
Cara produced a heavy yield of medium-sized white potatoes with red eyes. They’re a general purpose potato with a mild flavour, can be used for most purposes (except boiling/salads) and store well. They make good chips. They’re also very disease resistant.
Verity, which we were trying for the first time, was disappointing with a moderate yield of medium-sized creamy-coloured potatoes with red eyes. A general purpose potato that is said to store well, but apparently the longer it’s stored the less general purpose it becomes (turns into a good mashing and baking potato). Again, it has high disease resistance. The yield was not as good as Cara, let alone Milva.
Pentland Dell produced a heavy yield of large white potatoes. These are general purpose, but I use ours almost entirely for making chips. They’re not quite as good as King Edward for chips, but as they have much better blight and scab resistance, plus slug resistance I prefer to grow them. (No photos of these as they are buried deep in the storage bins.)
I’ll follow this up with information on our first and second earlies soon.
Glad to see this - I shall be referring back to it in due course.
In the meantime, a member over at NEEPS! (www.neeps.co.uk) is asking questions about a piglet with a hernia. If you know anything about this, and feel inclined, could you pop over and see if yu can give her a wee hand?
TIA
I’m often asked to join various forums, but almost always say no as I have enough to do with the croft, the boys, this blog, and the handful of forums I already participate in.
So, thanks for the invitation but, no.
As for the pig with the hernia, tell the keeper to get a vet to have a look ASAP.
We had a boar with a hernia a year ago, had the vet out and his advice in that particular case was to continue fattening him up but to keep an eye on him.
If the hernia got worse (and he told us what to look for), we were to have the pig killed as soon as possible.
However, depending on the location of the hernia and its severity, the pig keeper may be advised to either take the animal for slaughter immediately or, if that’s not possible, to have it put down.
So, tell them to have a vet in ASAP. There aren’t many vets who specialise in pigs these days, but the Dunnideer Veterinary Group in Insch certainly does.
Thanks for that. I can fully understand your reluctance to join anything else - just keeping up with the crofting is hard enough work! I shall give this lady your advice, and hopefully the piglet will be okay.