At last, fellow potato enthusiasts, a proper spud-focused blog post!
Following what can only be described as monsoon conditions yesterday, today we managed to lift the second bed of 'Kestrel' second early taters. As ever, we have an excellent crop. With the exception of the 'asteroid' I'm holding in the picture below left, they are clean, largely undamaged, regular kidney-shaped tubers of a good size, with a few large enough to set aside for baking.
I'm sure they will be better than either of the maincrop cultivars, as usual. I lifted one root of 'Cara' and although these are also nice regular potatoes (with pink eyes rather than the purple ones the 'Kestrels' have), three of the ten had been slug damaged and invaded by millipedes, so I have some misgivings about what to expect from the remainder of the bed. With such an unpredictable climate, there is something to be said for sticking to the variety I know likes our site, copes well with our pests with minimal protection and cooks well. I'll lift some 'Sarpo Mira' and 'Pink Fir Apple' shortly, and it will be interesting to see how they have fared this year - both are usually reliable and the PFAs usually both tasty and amusing, so should make next season's team too.
I did get new potatoes in time for my birthday (mid June) this year, thanks to a warm spring and a cloche. I grew 'Foremost' again on account of their excellent taste and slightly better slug-resistence than 'Rocket', my previous first choice of first early. Although I might try a different cultivar for comparison next year, I'll definitely be growing 'Foremost' again.
I could do with tying up less of the allotment and garden with spuds next spring, unless we're long-distance boating again and need to grow something that thrives on neglect, so there may be fewer trials. Certainly one experimental crop was a complete failure. I planted some 'Salad Blue' in the garden (a variety I had never grown before), alongside a row of 'Highland Burgundy Red' (usually reliable, but a little slug-prone). I got a decent crop of reds - but took fewer blues out than I put in! Of course it's always tricky finding dark-skinned taters as they tend to match the soil rather well, but clods of Talke Pits earth are fairly angular while taters are rounded, and even after repeated digging and turning over, there were no more than a handful to be found.
I'd like to have space for more squashes - these are 'Sunshine' and 'Harrier', cut today - and to erect a proper cage around the brassicas as the calabrese and cabbages are looking seriously lacy! It would also be good to grow the runner beans over several frames started at different times to give a better succession of crops; we have lots of delicious tender beans (despite the near front last night) and more on the way, but the frame is a tangled mass of tendrils and finding ripe beans among the greenery is more of a challenge than it should be.
But all-in-all, the allotment and garden haven't done too badly this year, considering they have been left to their own devices for months on end. And as for the fruit harvest - that deserves a post of its own, so watch this space.
