which potatoes?

[GeordieVik]

as a veg newbie, with a brand new, semi weeded lottie, which potatoes would you recommend for yields & flavour for my first spud growing attempts?

I was looking at a Thompson & Morgan 'heirloom' collection (see below) do they sound like nice ones, or should I just buy one variety from each grouping instead?

Red Duke of York (First Early)
Sharpes Express (First Early)
Catriona (Second Early)
International Kidney (Second Early/Early Maincrop)
Arran Victory (Late Maincrop)
Golden Wonder (Late Maincrop)

ZWW5049 6 x 10 tuber packs £13.49

Advice would be appreciated!

[nick the grief]

Hi GeordieVik,

Have a look at Alan Romans website I'll add the link at the bottom of the note. The best Idea is to have a word with some of the guys on your site & ask them what varieties grow well on the site. I love King edwards but they don't grow well on my plot so have looked around for other.

One way round it is to do what a me & a friend do. We grow one variety that we know is a good one & then trial others in pots, tubs etc if we like them we give them a try as an extra variety - if we don't well we've only lost a pot or two rather than rows of them.

The varieties I grew this year on the allotment are as follows:-

1st earlies
Winston
Rocket
2nd earlies
Nadine
Charlotte
Maincrop
Picasso
Maxine
In addition I grew Maris Peer in pots plus about another 4 varieties to try.
http://www.alanromans.co.uk/default.asp

[User Removed]

GeordieVik, Best to try Alan Romans like Nick said (Nick I didn't know you were a sales rep for Alan Romans) He has a very nice little range and he has some real heirloom varietys which are not grown for deisease risistance, keeping qualitys and looks but for real qualitys such as flavour and crops
Hope that helps

[GeordieVik]

Alan Romans

I had a look, but he seems to sell in large quantities, or am I wrong (3kg sounds like a lot of seed pots - approx how many would that be?)

So would you suggest going for one of each 1st, 2nd and maincrop then?

Thanks to both you & NTG for advice.

[Elmo]

Thanks for the link I have now ben wasting away my lunch hour fantasising about next years spud crop

I think I need to get out more!

[Silverfox]

Found a very good link below, well it helped me (bottom of page)
http://potatoes.thompson-morgan.com/

[JazzDuke]

Depends what type of potato you like. I grew potatoes for the first time this year (in polypots). Charlotte - excellent salad potato, good yield, good quality. Red Duke York - good yield, suffered more than the other two with scab. Maris Peer - fair yield, good quality.

I love the salad potatoes like Ratte and Pink Fir Apple, so will be looking to try them next year. Also International Kidney (aka Jersey Royal).

[nick the grief]

I had a look, but he seems to sell in large quantities, or am I wrong (3kg sounds like a lot of seed pots - approx how many would that be?)

So would you suggest going for one of each 1st, 2nd and maincrop then?

Thanks to both you & NTG for advice.

Might sound like a daft answer but it depends on the size of the tatties I tend to buy mine from a local supplier who has loads of different ones & so I work out how many I need & buy that number (he then weighs them & charges /Kg)

3kg is roughly 40 spuds which will give you a 40ft row of earlies or a 30ft row of maincrop so if your plot is 20 ft wide 2 rows of earlies or 1.5 rows of maincrop. This is if they are all about the size of a hens egg roughly.

[multiveg]

Did anyone hear yesterday's GQT? Had results of trials - said that seed potato size affected yield - the bigger the better. I have been getting my seed spuds from Potato day at Garden Organic - they have been sold on number rather than weight. Alan Romans has been there past few times.