seed potatoes. oh woe is meeeee.

[phil the shed]

what a dilemma
popped into my local independant garden centre tonight to see what seed pots they would be stocking for this year just check this lot of self selecters minimum purchase one potato upwards average price £1.60 a kilo
kondor
charlotte
harmony
sante
saxon
kestrel
nadine
lady chrystal
swift
accent
ulster prince
rocket
vanessa
pentland javelin
oh woe is me one row of each or what any advice recommendations please.

[Birdie Wife]

Have a look at the descriptions in the on-line catalogues (eg. T&M have a very wide selection, but also see Alan Romans and Dobies) and see what you like the look of! Think about what you use potatoes for - some are floury for lovely mash/baking, some are more waxy and make great boiled spuds or salads. Some are general purpose. You should also aim for a range of early/mid/late season unless conditions dictate otherwise - for example you might prefer to concentrate on early varieties if you are short on space or if your area suffers a lot from blight.

[shirlthegirl43]

Charlotte are good to do in buckets for salad spuds. That takes them out of the garden and leaves that space free for others. I tried rocket and swift a couple years back and one of them was rubbish. If I can find my notebook, I will post which was the not worth trying again one!

[veg4681]

Yeah I understand your dilemma. Personally I would go for variety. Using the sites mentioned by Birdie Wife, I'd identify each potato by its cropping group (first earlies, 2nd earlies, maincrop etc) and cooking characteristics (general use potato, waxy for salad potato, roasting etc). Then you can pick the mix that you want although I tend to shy away from the cheaper ordinary ones that you might be able to get from shops/supermarket (just my thought).

[bravo2zero]

Dear Phil,
My usual spud order is 3kg rocket first early(salad/new) in the tunnel, 3kg charlotte(salad/new and baker if big enough) outdoors and 8/10kg valor maincrop storer (masher/roaster/chipper/baker). this usualy sees me through without having to buy any from the palaces of hell.

[bravo2zero]

rubbish????????

dear shirlthegirl, dont take this the wrong way but what do you mean by rubbish????

[shirlthegirl43]

dear shirlthegirl, dont take this the wrong way but what do you mean by rubbish????

Just boring really, no flavour worth talking of. I did 4 different varieties, Duke of York (nice) Winston (gorgeous), rocket and swift (which I can't remember which was which now). If you find rocket good then perhaps it was swift that were the 'average' ones. All were planted in buckets, all with horse muck, all with the same treatment. Crops were all good but just the one type lacked enough 'specialness' to warrant growing again.

[PAULW]

I did 10 differant spuds last year,
5 Cherie 1st early nice,
5 Lady christl 1st early very nice,
20 Foremost 1st early cant fault these,
20 Vales emerald 2nd early fantastic tasting spud,
10 Bonny 2nd early these had a second growth with all the rain ended up the size of a baker but hollow not over impressed,
20 Maris peer 2nd early one of my favourite spuds,
20 Anya my favourite salad spud,
20 Harlequin early main crop very nice spud,
20 Maris piper excelent spud,
6 Mayan gold nice spud would def grow again.

[phil the shed]

interesting paul w
are mayan the blight resistant ones.
last year i did
swift
charlotte
anya
rocket
desiree
earlies and salad did well but desiree suffered due to the amount of water we had on the allotment in june and july.

[Hazel at the Hill]

Just boring really, no flavour worth talking of.

I'm guessing that that was the rocket, Shirl - I grew them though impatience as they were billed as being the earliest of the lot, but they didn't taste of anything in my view.

[PAULW]

Phil The blurb does not say they are blight resistant but when you cook them you would think they already had butter in them yummie.

[shirlthegirl43]

I'm guessing that that was the rocket, Shirl - I grew them though impatience as they were billed as being the earliest of the lot, but they didn't taste of anything in my view.

Cheers Hazel. I just hope for better spud growing conditions than last year!

[sewer rat]

Last year I grew Lady Christl, Charlotte, Edzell Blue, Maris Peer, Maris Piper, Rooster and Nicola. 25kg seed tubers of each - this year I will be growing 50 kg seed tubers of the following - Lady Christl, Charlotte and Edzell Blue (poss Duke of York as well as that is a favourite up here)
Maris Peer are not too anyones taste up here and I quite literally gave them away for duck food !!
I did also have a trial pack of Bonnie which did well for me too but I have to draw a line somewhere !!

[shirlthegirl43]

I tried Edzell Blue last year and got a tiny crop despite the blight that totalled everything. Think I might try them again this year as the couple we got (marble sized) were really tasty.

[debjay]

Hi
I found this useful for looking at the different potato varieties
The British Potato Variety Database
Good Luck with your choice
Debs