March  at Gordale
By Jill Nicholson

Grow Your Own Potatoes

Growing your own fruit and vegetables has always been very popular and in today’s climate of healthy eating it is becoming increasingly so. Not everybody has the benefit of a large allotment but even with the smallest of spaces you can benefit from a little bit of ‘home grown taste’.

We always hold a Potato Weekend in January or February and if you haven’t been to one and you have a interest in Grow Your Own then you have missed out. Medwyn Williams, 10 times Chelsea Gold Medal Winner, came along and gave fascinating talks about potatoes and other vegetables. There isn’t much Medwyn doesn’t know about vegetables and he grows and shows vegetables that are huge.

If you have never grown vegetables before a good start is potatoes, they are cheap and easy to grow. The taste between a home grown and a supermarket potato is unbelievable and potatoes can play a big part in a well balanced diet having plenty of Vitamin C, Vitamin B3 and copper and phosphorous.

You need to be choosing your seed potatoes now, there are about 500 potato varieties to choose from. At Gordale we carry over 50 of them, probably the largest range of any garden centre. This choice can be somewhat overwhelming and as a novice you might wonder where to start.

The potatoes can be split into 3 groups, First Early, Second Early and Main Crop. This is very straightforward as the definitions are based purely on when the potatoes are ready. First Earlies can be harvested in 10 weeks, Second Earlies in 13 weeks and Maincrop in 20 weeks. Within these groups it is just a matter of personal taste and needs. The water content and flesh structure of each variety is different and this is reflected in its cooking strengths. For example;

Best for Boling -   Nadire, Kestrel Wilja, Maris Piper, Desiree, King Edward

Best for Baking  -  Epicure, Stemster, Pentland Javelin

Best for Roasting -   Desiree, Romano, Maris Piper

Best for Chips -   Cara, Celine, Golden Wonder

Best for Salads -   Pink Fir Apple, Charlotte, International Kidney

This list is not exhaustive and reflects my own personal preferences. At one time in greengrocers you were offered white or red but now with increasing customer awareness the varieties are named but the choice is still commercially restricted so I prefer to grow varieties that are more ‘unique’.

Once purchased you need to ‘chit’ your seed potatoes. This entails putting your potatoes in a cool, frost  free, light ( but not direct  light ) place. I put mine onto a large cardboard egg tray, pointy side up. This encourages short, stubby shoots to appear, if you get more than 3 it is best to remove the weaker looking ones, snap them off and carefully remove the bit remaining in the potato with the end of a potato peeler.

In the meantime you can be preparing the patch in your garden. Potatoes prefer a lime soil and are hungry plants so it is best to dig the land over well and add copious amounts of manure and add Vitax Q4 or similar proprietary product. Once chitted, plant your earlies in March and main crop a few weeks later. Plant in rows which are approximately 600 mm apart with each seed potato 300 mm apart.  As the plants grow, draw up the soil from alongside to cover the shoots and prevent  frost damage and to stop the potatoes going green, each time the shoot reappears continue mounding up  until the mound is approximately 400 mm high.   

Water and fertilize regularly with a potato fertilizer such as Organic Potato Fertilizer, Nitorogen, Phosphorous and Potassium are crucial to the successful growth of potatoes.

Slugs and Potato Blight are potatoes two biggest pests. Slugs can be controlled by using slug pellets, an organic pellet is possible, (Growing Success Advanced Slug Killer ) follow the instructions on the packet but it is not necessary  to use too many.

Potato Blight ( Phytophthora infestans )  is more of a problem,  it is a fungus which likes warm and humid conditions and as an air borne infection travels miles. It is identifiable by brown freckles on the leaves which grow into a patch. If not removed quickly and burnt all the vegetation will rot and the blight will spread to the tubers which will also rot and be useless. This is what happened in the Irish Potato Famine in 1845 to 1849 which resulted in thousands of Irish starving with many being forced to leave to live in England and America.

Some potatoes are more resistant to rot than others and this might influence your choice of seed potato, Orla, Nadine, Cara, Pentland Dell have more resistant foliage, whilst Nicola, Picasso and Sante have more resistant tubers. If you are unfortunate enough to spot some blight, if you catch it early  you can spray with Dithane.

Harvesting is of course the best time, I await with anticipation the first home grown ones and often harvest one or two of my first early tubers to benefit from small tasty potatoes with skin so thin it barely needs removing. This does reduce the yield a little but is worthwhile. To harvest fork in from the side of the mound, it is inevitable that you will spear some of the potatoes. Leave on the soil surface for a few hours to dry and then store in hessian sacks, paper bags or old pillow cases. On no account store in plastic bags or clear bags as the potatoes will sweat and rot or go green. For main crop it is possible to remove the foliage a few days to a week before harvesting.

If you have no space in your garden  or have only a patio or balcony potatoes are perfectly happy growing in a Potato Gro Bag (£3.99). In this case I would choose a more unusual variety that will not be seen on the greengrocers shelf.  Put 3 potatoes into a covering of soil in the bottom of the bag, as the shoots grow cover with some soil, repeating this as the shoots grow until the bag is full of soil. Water and fertilize copiously.

Seed potatoes can be bought loose or in small packs with full planting instructions, which are very easy or any of my staff will be delighted to give you any advice you need when you come along to buy your seed potatoes.

Enjoy growing and more importantly eating your delicious home grown potatoes.

Late summer/autumn flowering bulbs and tubers have been in stock sometime at the garden centre, I am always tempted by the wonderful pictures of old and new varieties and can always find the odd space or patio pot which needs planting. Dahlias once rather unfashionable are becoming increasingly popular and many of the varieties also make great cut flowers to bring colour into the house. I am not a keen seed grower but many gardeners are and seeds are now readily available. I prefer to cut out the difficult germination stage and use the plug plants, which although are marginally more expensive are more fool proof for people like me and do not want to heat their greenhouse from early January.

Every winter I get hours of pleasure from feeding the birds, dozens of them visit my patio every day, blue tits, starlings, blackbirds, sparrows, thrushes, jays, collar doves, pied wagtails, robins, finches and the occasional woodpecker. We have a Rhus typhina  in a large Italian pot right by the patio door from which we hang coconut halves (Pack of 6, £5.99), seed and nut feeders  and a squirrel proof feeder ( returned by a customer who said the birds could not get in to ) and the birds just love to feed from them all whilst others harvest the scraps which fall to the floor below. I am always careful not to put food in a manner which will attract rats so do not over feed. In the cold weather it is always important to remember to put water out for the birds too as they can soon dehydrate if ponds and puddles are frozen.

I will be back next month with some tips for April.