Karen Gimson has a great blog, Bramble Garden where she writes about her "almost out-of-control garden" and the setting sound so idyllic "mile from the nearest village, on the top of a windswept ridge, in the middle of farming country." The Blog is really worth a read and follow. There are also some lovely recipes there. Karen is also on BBC Radio Gardening.
Karen decided to try some potatoes before planting, which is a great idea before you invest valuable garden space in a particular variety. This blog post is copied with permission and all pics on this page are (c) Karen Gimson.
I’ve often thought it would be a great idea to try out different varieties before committing to ordering and growing seed potatoes. Well now you can do just that. Potato House are selling ready-to-eat varieties of heritage, coloured, rare and organic spuds!
It’s a new venture for Potato House and there’s a dedicated area of the website for ordering ready-to-eat potatoes : https://www.potatohouse.co.uk/potatoes-to-eat/
I ordered five varieties, Arran Victory, Blue Annelise, Heidi Red, Pink Fir Apple and one simply called ‘Chips’ for cooking chips and wedges.
The coloured potatoes really appealed to me, as it’s not easy to buy them locally. I like the idea of keeping heritage varieties going, and it’s lovely to try something new. Potatoes arrived promptly after ordering. I was delighted with the quality. The potatoes are a good size and beautiful condition.
"We are renowned for our colourful range of seed potatoes. These look and taste amazing. The best thing about growing your own produce is experimenting with colours that are not readily available in supermarkets.
Growing and cooking coloured potatoes takes no extra skill. You grow according to the maturity and then cook according to the potato type. So if you have a second early, smooth, blue seed potato such as Salad Blue, it will grow like any other second early taking about 14 weeks to mature and then will be delicious as a mash!"Â Amy Skea, Potato House
I’m using some of my potatoes for Christmas, but I’m also looking through my cookery books to decide what else to make with them. I probably won’t be able to resist buying all of them as seed potatoes too. To have beautiful varieties like these coming out of the veg plot next year is a very cheerful prospect indeed.
Are any of you looking through catalogues and on-line deciding what varieties to grow right now? What potatoes would you recommend, and have any of you tried the more unusual red, blue and black varieties? Thanks for reading my blog. Happy gardening! And happy cooking too!
