Tastiest Potatoes

[The Doctor]

Pesonally, I really like Pink Fir Apple. Shame they are such a pain to prepare!

[Dog House]

Strongly recommend Anya, good crop, not eaten and very tasty!

[pigletwillie]

Foremost as an early and Marfona as a maincrop. As a special pink fir apple are the biz.

[Flummery]

I LOVE Arran Pilot. Also Lady Christle. (SP?)

[Sue]

I've been scribbling down your comments and find I've listed 16 varieties, now I've grown 4 this year and have got over 100lb of potatoes still to eat my way through so will have to do some whittling down of my list.
Why don't suppliers allow purchase of smaller quantities of seed potatoes, would love to try a larger range of varieties. Taster packs would be great.
Sue

[bazzaboy]

hi Sue

Yes most suppliers are missing a trick there…. Marshalls offer a (very restricted) Taster Pack (Charlotte, Swift and Maris Peer) including, if you so choose, their Gro-sacks (anyone tried them, are they any good?) – see
http://www.marshalls-seeds.co.uk/
and search…

HDRA (Organic Gardening) are making best headway on this front – last year they held a Potato Open Day (though you’re a bit of a hike from Warks) and also offered quite a range through their catalogue with CHASE, see
http://www.organiccatalog.com/catalog/
and search…

Also some enterprising garden centres sometimes offer small quantities
e.g. see
http://www.worsleyhallgardencentre.com/other_seeds.htm

But main suppliers’ heads, one suspects, are somewhere else…. (££££££££) (You’ve prompted me to ask a related Q under “General Chitchat” – “Who owns and controls UK seed companies?” as I find it all very confusing.)

I only grow potatoes in containers now – ideal for your “taster” idea, relatively problem free and so easy to crop, you don’t even need a fork, just rummage around and pull out the ones you need. Any the wrong size for that particular meal put back, cover up and they stay fresh. The main problem is finding enough containers! (Oh and watering but hardly a problem this year, the containers nearly floated off at one point….). The late summer has brought the Xmas spuds on somewhat quicker than anticipated, looks like we might have to celebrate Christmas some time in November this year.

Just to add to your impossible list which I’ve been noting too – H-on-the H mentioned Nadine which did the best ever size-wise in containers (baking potato size though you also seem to get a lot of mini ones in containers) – as the quick growth suggests I found them best mashed. Also not always available but Ratte are tasty (salad).

bb

[momol]

I like Nicola, it is not a heavy producer but taste nice and waxy. Grown bintje before, produce loads but nothing special from the taste.

Momol

[Lizzy]

Tastiest Potatoes

Thanks everyone, will go through the above mentioned and pick some out to try next year.

Liz

[Sue]

BB
A potato open day would be good, I've not seen one local to me but will keep an eye out.
Thanks for the links but none of those look right, perhaps I'll write to Alan Romans and see what he says?
best wishes
Sue

[cottage garden]

Anya for me, just love 'em

[gondor]

Tatties

Red Duke of York = excellent all rounder
Charlotte = excellent, bigger than expected, maybe the manure
Sante = hit by potato blight, not big crop, down to weather rather than potato i think!!!

Sarpo Mira, Sarpo Axona = Totally blight resistent, not slug resistent, TASTE = OK

[sewer rat]

This year I grew the following varieties;
Lady Christl - great yield, superb taste, favourite early of my customers
Maris Peer - politeness forbids me from saying what I think about this variety
Nicola - very waxy salad variety - good nice taste and yield but overall tuber size quite small.
Edzell Blue - another customer favourite - espesh good for a floury mash and average in terms of yield and tuber size.
Charlotte - Another serious contender for customer favourite. Good yield and tuber size.
Maris Piper - bog standard and reliable general purpose spud.
Rooster - general purpose spud - performed better than Piper and preferred by folk up here to Piper too.
I am now in a pickle as I want to reduce the varieties I grow next year and introduce one more, so at the moment I will have Lady Christl, Charlotte, Rooster, Edzell Blue and Duke of York, with increased quantities of all - probably 50kg seed tubers of each variety - had 25kg of each this year..

[Paulottie]

I grew Anya this year, I thought they were less of a pain to prepare and earlier and tastier than pink fir apple. They did get a bit of blight though, so lost some, and had to use them up quick. Thought I might try growing Rattes this year which were the first of those nutty style spuds I tried in France years ago- delicieux.

[Flummery]

I'm farily sure that Alan Romans (sp?) does some small packs. I thought I'd try several varieties next year instead of 3 or 6 kg of one.

[vegnut]

I think that arran pilot is still my favourite first early, i'm still trying to decide wich of the mains are tastiest for me. Looks like i will just have to keep trying different types then lol.