Gardeners love Cara for its high levels of resistance to drought, blight, common scab and viruses. One of the best hardy growers, the tubers are white and round with shallow pink eyes. In the kitchen they are good for baking and chipping.
Discounts for bulk buying any variety of 25 kg hessian sacks. See wholesale page for full details. Applied automatically.
We aim to dispatch within 3 days and then delivery will take 3-4 days. Prices include UK delivery with very few exceptions.
For the vast majority of orders we do not charge a surcharge for Scottish Highlands and Islands. However, we reserve the right to contact you if we can’t get a viable rate. Please see FAQ for full details
We are reluctantly forced to close our online shop to customers in the EU and Northern Ireland. 17/12/20 saw the last order come in from France. Full statement here
For Isle of Man and the Channel Islands please see FAQ for details
If you wish to pick up we offer a 15% discount. By default, this option will only appear for local postcodes. If yours doesn’t appear, use our postcode DD3 0QN in the “Deliver to Address”. Also to help us, put “pick up” in the “deliver to address”. Note that your order may still take a day or two to organise and we will contact you when your order is ready. We operate on a working farm with machinery, vehicles and livestock and so please keep children and pets inside your car when picking up. This is only available for orders up to £50 – if you wish to pick up a larger order, please contact us prior to ordering.
If you want a specific week, let us know in the information box and we will do our best to send it out then. We recommend that you get your potatoes in plenty of time to chit. If you plan to plant in March, we would suggest delivery in late January/February to give 4-6 weeks chitting, if you plan to plant in April, a late February/March date would suit.
All products ordered will be sent together in the same delivery. If you require us to split the delivery please do two orders. Or let us know and an additional postal charge will be payable.
Most varieties are available between November and mid-May. However we grow a lot of varieties in small quantities and these will sell out quite fast.
To ensure your order arrives in the best possible condition, deliveries will be made as soon as all the varieties on your order are available, using an appropriate courier or postal service.
If you choose to pay by BACS or cheque we will not begin to process your order out until your payment has been received and cleared. This could take a few days and may not be checked each day.
During times of frost or low temperatures deliveries will be held back until more favourable conditions prevail.
Some deliveries may be delayed if we have to re- stock our nets, we will try to keep you informed of any delays.
Our 6-tuber nets of potatoes are packed by number, not weight and so there can be a variation on the size of the tubers in each net. Our 1kg nets are 1kg, but can also have variation in size of the tubers within that net. There is an average of 12-14 tubers in a 1kg net. But this can vary depending on variety and the harvest – we could supply only the mid sized tubers – but then what would we do with the larger and smaller ones – if they could not be sold we would need to charge double for the medium ones and this would generate huge waste. The number could be as low as 8 or as high as 16.
Seed Potatoes are generally much smaller than the supermarket eating equivalent. Unless otherwise stated, we sell our potatoes as 35mm-55mm which is the industry standard across the UK.
This does not mean that the tuber is 35mmx55mm This means that when the potato is graded, it will fall through a 55mm square, but not through a 35mm square.
🥔 This year we are trialling selling much smaller potatoes and these will be very clearly marked. We are offering these to you as a trial – by having a market for these small potatoes and being able to sell at a reduced price means that we can keep our prices low overall. These will be offered, if available when we have sold out of our standard potatoes. They are still within the size limits allowed to be sold as seed potatoes and will give a great crop. There are around 12 in a 450g bag and we would suggest planting two of these as one. The 450g nets are included in the 6 tuber net and 1kg bulk deals. Your feedback is most welcome whether you buy or not, please let us know.
We abide by the rules set in The Seed Potatoes (Scotland) Regulations 2015
It is definitely a good idea to chit, but to do this you need to get your seed nice and early – maybe January or February if you are in the South of England and March or April if you are in North of Scotland. The aim is to have your potatoes come through the ground after the last frost in your area as the new plant is susceptible to frost.
Chitted seed will be ready to grow much quicker once Spring arrives and the soil warms up. Chitted seed should come through the ground in about 2 weeks.
If you buy your seed in April or May, however, then there is little or no advantage in chitting since the soil temperature will be ok for planting, though the unchitted seed will take c4 weeks to come through the ground.
Remove the seed potatoes from the net as soon as you receive them (as the shoots will grow through the nets and can break if you try to remove them) and put them in an egg carton in a sunny window sill. The shoots will start to sprout and when they are around an inch long they will be ready to plant.
Early Main Crop and Main Crop take around 15 – 22 week respectively to mature. Main crops can be planted till around mid May depending on where you are in the UK
There is a common myth that you can cut the tuber up to give a better yield. We do not advise this. Tubers have enough stored energy to get to the surface and produce a healthy crop. By cutting they you are risking the tuber going mouldy as it has no skin to protect it and lower yields.
Potatoes like to be watered but not water-logged and so ensure your pot or area has good drainage.
Potatoes need a sunny site away from frost pockets – the newly emerging foliage is susceptible to frost damage in April and May.
The traditional planting method is to dig a narrow trench 12cm (5in) deep. The seed tubers are spaced 37cm (15in) for maincrop varieties in rows 75cm (30in) apart. Apply a general purpose fertiliser at this stage. When the emerging shoots come through, you need to “earth” or “mound” them up – this is counter intuitive. Do this several times. This encourages downward growth – the new tubers will jostle for space and any growing near the surface will turn green.
Small crops of potatoes can also be grown in large, deep containers, and this is a good way of getting an early batch of new potatoes. Fill the bottom 15cm (6in) of the container with potting compost and plant the seed potato just below this. As the new stems start growing, keep adding compost until the container is full.
With maincrops for storage wait until the foliage turns yellow, then cut it and remove it. Leave for 10 days before harvesting the tubers – this allows the skin to set, leaving them to dry for a few hours before storing.
These potatoes have a fluffy middle when cooked. They are not only great for family favourites such as ruffled up roasties but also tasty jackets or chunky chips. Parboiled floury potatoes freeze well.
Click on pictures to enlarge. Although Maris Piper is mentioned, any floury potatoes can be used in these recipes.
Sticky Orange Potato Cake and Mexican Wedgies
Recipes are taken from the “AHDB – Potatoes more than a bit on the side” site and used with permission. Click on logo for some more wonderful recipes! AHDB is a members based programme of which Potato House is a member.
We’d love to see any pics of your kitchen creations on our social media pages – see links at the foot of the page.
Here at Potato House, we net and bag up most of our potatoes. If a variety says out of stock this could be temporary or indeed we could well be out of stock for the season. There could be a delay from our store to the web as we communicate this information.
If a product has DELAY TO REBAG on it, it means that we need to check stock and re-bag if we still have some left. This is not a guarantee that we do have more in stock.
If a product has SOLD OUT for 2021, it really does mean sold out.
Potato House grows around 90 varieties and some are in small quantities and sell out quickly. We leave these products on our web and if you are looking for a particular variety, we invite you to join our mailing list. When we harvest in the autumn and know quantities we then will open our web up for pre-orders and let our mailing list know about the varieties.
Description
Susceptible to Dry rot Fusarium sulphureum Powdery scab, potato cyst nematode Globodera pallida Pa2/3,1. Tests show resistance to late blight on tubers, Silver scurf, common scab potato virus Yo, Bruising and Splitting. Cara is resistant to potato cyst nematode Globodera rostochiensis Ro1.
Parentage Ulster Glade x A25/19
This was my first season growing anything and the staff recommended a few varieties for me and I was delighted with all the suggestions. I got a good crop and this was my favourite.
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Penny Millar –
This was my first season growing anything and the staff recommended a few varieties for me and I was delighted with all the suggestions. I got a good crop and this was my favourite.