4 January 2008

One potato, two potato, three potato, four!

In the run up to Christmas we received several large parcels and packages through the post. One of the most exciting of the bunch was the box of seed potatoes I had previously ordered from the Organic Seed Catalogue. As always, I have far too many - 8kg in total. I can give three of my beds over to potatoes this year, but I will still need to give a fair few of the spare seed away. I really must plan to go to a potato day next year and limit myself.

Still, I have chosen what should prove to be some truly delicious varieties as I went for the Cook’s Choice collection. They sound mouthwatering:

Desiree are supposed to be good roasters, which is just as well as we like our roasties to be veritable nuns’ farts of lightness on the inside. Ambo have very pretty bi-coloured skin and seem to be all-round, use ‘em every day potatoes. Arran Victory are the ones that I am most excited about. They have a bright purple skin (purple is my favourite colour so I become very excitable when I find veg in that colour. Unless they’re aubergines. Yeuch.) and are supposed to be very tasty. I’m hoping we’ll grow enough large ones for them to be good bakers. Orla we’ve had before - another good all-purpose tater. Makes nice mash, as I recall. Charlotte you probably already recognise. And to top them all off, I’ve also ordered a pile of pink fir apple because I love their gorgeous knobbly nuttiness.

At present they’re all still in their respective mesh bags piled on top of each other in the box they arrived in sitting next to my desk . I usually set them out in trays for chitting and perhaps I will get round to that sometime soon, but if not, well, they seem to be sprouting just fine where they are. And this way I can catch glimpses of them while I beaver away at my work and be heartened at the prospect of potager fun ahead.

Filed under: Mulch — Clare @ 10:59 am