Best Potato

[Berr]

What price its name was meant to be "Roaster"? It's Irish, after all! (don't tell your wife I said that- OR mine!)

B.

[User Removed]

You won't get a better roaser than rooster.
Hows that rat
Adam

[sewer rat]

Adam
Maybe you should send that to the Potato Marketing Board - or whatever they call themselves now !!

[annie trip]

Looking thro my catalogues now for next years tatties and wondered what you thought of my list???

Only my 2nd year growing potatoes and dont even know what i grew last year so am trying to be more precise!!

1st Earlies: Rocket
2nd Earlies: Charlotte
Early maincrop: Desiree
Late maincrop: Golden wonder,

Does this sound like a good combo or i am going for something completely wrong??

[Protea]

My potatoes have all been rather dissapointing this year i think partly due to the weather and mostly due to me rushing things this spring and not preparing the ground properley, then being far too busy planning my wedding that i ignored the wasteland of weeds that developed - oh well! better luck next year.

I grew a wide selection:

Pink Fir apple: low yield but fabulous as chips (cut in half drizzled with olive oil and roasted )
Desiree: probably best of the lot for yield and flavour, good for mash and roasts
Rocket: dissapoiting but so were all of my earlies
Pentland Javelin: best of the earlies but small tubers and low yield
Lady Christl: terrible - turned to mush when boiled, low yield, won't grow again
Kestrel: so-so
Picasso: a bit on the small side but probably my fault! might try again with exhibitor grade in buckets next year

I have bought some Rooster potatoes from Sainsburys - they were delicious - best chips and fab mash too! I'm going to try these next year.

Vales Emerald i'm going to use as one of my earlies - i was at a Greenvale Organic potato day (i was giving a talk) and the buffet lunch had these as boiled new pots and they were delicious!

[bramble]

Am thinking of trying Rooster next year as well. We buy rooster when we run out of our own and i think they're a great all round potato. Am also going to grow cara. Did some in buckets and they were lovely.

[Bex]

How big a bucket to you need to grow pots, is it just a standard bucket, if so how many potato do you put in?

I've ordered some pink fir apple, rooster, cara, rocket and a couple of others I can't remember off hand. Haven't grown anything before so it was just close eyes and stick pin in the catalogue.

[Birdie Wife]

I bought seed potatoes in Inverness from a general hardware shop. They only had Rooster and Red Duke of York so that's what I got - I was disappointed at first 'cos I was after King Edwards and I didn't know anything about Rooster, but in the end I was very glad I did! Got a good crop of very heathly Roosters, but many of the Red Duke succumbed to scab in the smae plot. Will definitley be going for Rooster again next year.

[bramble]

I use the black buckets sold in B&Q. I put 3 seed spuds in. I know some people will put in less but i always put 3 just in case one fails.

[Crazy Chickie]

Hi, this was my first year growing tatties and though I didn't get the kind of crop you see Monty Don producing on GW I wasn't too disapointed. I grew Rocket, Swift, Mimi and Harlequin, I only chose them because they were on special offer in one of the magazines. I grew them one to a bag in old plastic coal sacks, washed out of course, with garden soil and some over priced horse manure, which was nowhere near as well rotted as I'd been lead to believe grr. I had the tops of the bags rolled down and gradually raised them as I earthed up the tatties. Then I forgot to name the bags and can't tell you which but one of the vareties did really poorly, I think it was the earliest.
Next tear I'm growing a selection of coloured heritage varieties which I got on special (again, thats where all my seed comes from, that and impulse buying ) as micro plants. The varieties were Aura (white), Highland Burgundy (red) Mr Littles Yetholm Gypsy (Reddish purple), Salad Blue (guess) and Witch Hill (white). They did really well and I have loads of little seed tatties. Really looking forwards to blue mash next year

[Skipper]

Im lost
So many names,so many different spuds, growing in different mediums, where the hell do I start.

This is what I have = A piece of ground that is at the moment covered in grass,dock,dandelion and creeping buttercup.The soil is clay and is acid.
This is what I want to do = Grow some spuds, preferably without any heavy digging.

What next = Advice please on how to go about it.

[Crazy Chickie]

I grow my spuds in bags because I don't have room for a proper potato bed, it would probably save you some digging as well, but you would be surprised how much soil you'll need for the bags.

[CarolineSonning]

Skipper have a search for "no dig potatoes" (just search the titles) and it's a thread on 4/10/2006 in the vegging Out section.

I know it sounds too good to be true (and it maybe) so I'm going to give it a go and see how I fare.

[Skipper]

Thanks Caroline.
For lettimg me know about that thread, it seems to be a good solution to the problem and like you I am definitely going to give it a go . I have asked Father Christmas for the set of dvd's, I promised him a bag of spuds and a carrot for rudolph if I get them.(do raindeers eat karots?)