Potatoes and their uses, pt 2

Having detailed the main-crop potatoes we grew this year, I thought I should also look at the earlies and salad potatoes, plus the varieties we’ve grown in previous years.

As well as the main-crop potatoes, this year we also grew Pink Fir Apple (salad), Colleen (first early), Edzell Blue and Catriona (second earlies). In previous years, we tried Duke of York (first early), Maris Peer (second early), Lady Balfour (early main-crop), and Remarka, Valor, Golden Wonder and Picasso (all main-crop).

We also tried growing Champion (maincrop) from micro-plants last year.

Pink Fir Apple produced a heavy crop of mainly knobbly pink potatoes, although five plants had a mix of white and pink tubers. Despite being low in blight resistant, early picking meant they weren’t affected. They have good resistance to scab but are said to be susceptible to eel worm. They are extremely delicious and good hot or cold, especially in salads.

Colleen produced a reasonable crop of medium-sized white potatoes with creamy flesh. They are are high in blight and scab resistance, but are susceptible to eelworm. We did lose a few of these to slug damage. They are a good general purpose potato, hold together well when boiled and are also good when cold. They make reasonable but not excellent mash.

Duke of York was a failure. Almost all the plants suffered blight quite early on and all were pulled and burned. They’re described as firm, early scrapers that mature into a good floury potato. As we found, they are susceptible to blight, but they do have high scab resistance. They are susceptible to eelworm.

Edzell Blue produced a reasonable crop of medium-sized purple-blue potatoes with very white flesh. Even though they were picked early and sprayed regularly with Bordeaux Mixture, several of the plants showed early signs of blight and had to be burned. They are low in blight resistance, have some scab resistance and are susceptible to eelworm. A floury potato, they bake and mash well but they have to be eaten quickly even by first early standards. Much of our crop is becoming soft and wrinkled within six to eight weeks of being picked.

Catriona produced a reasonable crop of medium-sized white potatoes with blue eyes. Some had creamy flesh, some yellow. As with the Edzell Blues, some plants suffered from blight. Catriona is also low in blight resistance, has moderate scab resistance and is susceptible to eel worm. We also had slug damage to a small proportion of ours. We’ve found them to hold up well when cooked and they make a good general purpose potato with a good flavour.

Maris Peer produced a small crop of small, white potatoes but they were close to a line of spruce trees and this may have had an impact as the soil did dry out. The plants were by the far the best looking of all the potatoes were grown, the flavour was outstanding and they were excellent potatoes for boiling. They had moderate resistance to blight and scab, and are susceptible to eelworm.

Lady Balfour produced an average crop of medium-sized white skinned potatoes with pinkish flesh. A modern variety, they have very high blight resistance, moderate scab resistance and have some resistance to eelworm. While not particularly good as roasters/bakers, they did make good mash, boiled well and could be used in salads. However, we found the flavour to be lacking. They did not store well, lasting about four months.

Remarka is another modern variety and produced a good crop of large, white potatoes. They have high blight and scab resistance, and are partially resistant to eelworm. They’re a good general purpose potato, but the flavour wasn’t as good as some of the older varieties nor was the yield. Remarka lasted six months in storage before going soft and sprouting.

Valor, also a modern variety, produced a good crop of medium, white potatoes. They have high blight and scab resistance, and are resistant to eelworm. Another good general purpose potato, but one that doesn’t boil as well as some of the others. We found the flavour to be among the best of the modern varieties, but still a little mild. Storage was mixed, with some lasting seven months but others going soft and sprouting after five to six months.

Golden Wonder produced a small crop of russet-skinned potatoes with white flesh. We had to lift these before they were fully mature due to frosts (they were the last to be lifted in mid-October) - another two weeks would probably have resulted in a heavier crop. They are highly resistant to blight and scab, but susceptible to eelworm. The flavour is very intense and they made excellent mash, chips and roasters.

Picasso produced a huge crop of creamy potatoes with pink eyes and streaks. While they are blight and scab resistant, ours seemed to attract every slug for miles - despite our otherwise effective use of nematodes for slug control. Picasso can be planted late and grows well in pots, which might be a way of keeping them away from slugs. It’s a floury potato (and we found became more floury the longer it’s stored) and was very good mashed. However, it’s still a general purpose potato and can be used successfully for baking, roasting and chips but it can be a bit soggy when boiled. They stored extremely well - lasting seven months

Champion was an interesting experiment. The idea is that you plant the micro-plants, get a small to medium crop, eat some and keep enough seed potatoes to plant a good crop in the second year. It did not work out like that for us. Our five plants produced an average of four small to medium-sized potatoes each, with deep eyes, white skin tinted with blue and extraordinary yellow flesh. The taste was superb, with a strong nuttiness that we thought delicious. Disease resistance is said to be good. They would probably have done better with a much longer season, but with late delivery (June) and hence planting, then early lifting as we live so far north they were not a success.

Bearing in mind our local conditions, we’ll continue growing Pink Fir Apple and Colleen, while continuing our search for a more reliable second early.

Most of the modern main-crop potatoes proved up to their marketing as disease resistant but the flavours were usually too mild for our palates. We’ll probably continue with Milva due to the very heavy yield, but it depends on how well they store.

Otherwise, we’ll continue with Cara and Pentland Dell while trying other main-crop varieties as well - looking for disease resistant varities with heavy yields, that store well and have a good flavour.