Follow the allotment series here.

No more photos of muddy fields today! Last weekend we went to the Somerset Potato Day, in Pylle. It was an amazing event, around a hundred different varieties of potato, sold by the tuber. Rather like a muddy pick ‘n’ mix! It was also extremely busy. The choice was somewhat bewildering so we decided to limit ourselves to ten tubers of just five different varieties, making sure we got a spread from 1st early to late maincrop. Here’s what we ended up with:

Foremost 1st Early
Waxy flesh. When first added to the national list in 1954 it was Suttons Foremost and an instant hit with gardeners who liked its excellent flavour and resistance to disintegration when boiling. Good common scab resistance. Short to oval in shape with white skin and waxy white flesh.
Use: Salad, Bake, Boil, Roast.

Roseval 2nd Early
Salad, smooth, deep red skinned with yellow flesh salad variety, sometimes with a pink flush. The flesh is waxy with a truly suburb flavour. Excellent for salad use, hot or cold. A very pretty variety, good cooking quality. Popular in France, rare in UK.

Sarpo Shona Early Maincrop
Short growing, weed smothering, slightly oval shaped early maincrop with white skin, creamy flesh and shallow eyes, plus a great resistance to blight.

Pink Fir Apple Late Maincrop
Waxy flesh, good flavour. Just brush off under the tap and steam in its skin, don’t worry if bits break off them, cook them all. It does tend to wander so make sure to dig up all the tubers.
Recommend use: Boil, Salad.

Kerrs Pink Late Maincrop
Floury flesh. Raised in Scotland by James Henry, very vigorous foliage, the age shows in the deep eyes and good flavour. Recommend use: Chip, Mash, Roast.

Seed Potatoes, 18th Feb 2011

Before planning potatoes must be chitted. This is just allowing them to sprout before planting and what we started today. It’s recommended to allow around six weeks for chitting. Each potato has one end a little more rounded or blunt with a few ‘eyes’. We stand them, this blunt end uppermost, in egg boxes or similar, in a cool and light place. Our loft with its skylights seems ideal. Once the shoots are 0.5-1 inches long they are ready to plant. This should be around the last week of March.

1st earlies should be ready after around 10 weeks and the maincrop more like 20. Fingers crossed for mid June!

Seed Potatoes, 18th Feb 2011

Seed Potato Catalogue

Follow the allotment series here.

Returning to the allotment in January after the seriously cold December we discovered evidence of trespass. Rabbits, we presume, had been at the garlic and remaining carrot tops. The carrots had been chewed to the ground, however, the garlic had only been nibbled. Each plant had lost its top couple of inches. Maybe the garlic isn’t really to the rabbit’s taste and gets stronger further down the plant?

Nibbled garlic, 8th January 2011.

Nibbled carrots, 8th January 2011.

Note the Leporidae evidence in the bottom left. We decided to harvest all the remaining carrots, before the rabbits decided to dig them up! We ended up with ~2.5 kg once topped and washed. The whole bed probably produced around 6 kg in total. What is one to do with 2.5 kg of fresh carrots?

Preparing 2.5 kg of carrots.

Carrots and coriander soup of course!

Carrot and coriander soup.

Follow the allotment series here.

Our first proper harvest from the allotment today. We planted the carrots on 1st August, 13 weeks to the day here’s some of what we have:

Carrots 31st October 2010

The garlic was planted on the 10th October, here it is three weeks on:

Garlic, three weeks old. 31st October 2010

The red onions we planted three weeks ago are just breaking the surface, not as impressive as the garlic yet. Erica meticulously prepared this bed for a second batch of onions which went in today. There were lots of worms!

Preparing the onion bed, 31st October 2010

I dug another two 3m x 1m beds. The turf going into the compost. Here’s the compost heap with its turf walls:

Compost heap, 31st October 2010