The Best Potatoes For Beginners to Grow
New To Growing Potatoes? We have selected 5 of the best potatoes for beginners to grow
Save £5 when you buy all five recommendations
We are often asked about the best potatoes for beginners to grow. Growing your own vegetables is a wonderful hobby - the taste of freshly harvested potatoes and peas eaten an hour after harvest is just amazing. Potatoes are a relatively easy crop to grow, but like all things that grow they are susceptible to diseases and "eating things". However, by choosing certain varieties, the beginner has more chance of success. We highly recommend "earlies" for beginners for two reasons - they are the quickest to mature and so enthusiasm will hopefully last and also they are likely to be harvested before blight sets it. Blight tends to occur later in the summer and can decimate a crop quite quickly and a beginner may not know what to look out for.
The great thing about growing your own produce is that you can begin to experiment with colours, flavours and textures. It does not take long to find what grows well in your area and what you like.
We have lots of advice and blogs for beginners – why not challenge a beginner friend to a potato Championchip for a bit of potato fun? If you are growing for the first time we’d love to hear how you get on. Leave a comment on our Facebook page.
Five Best Potatoes For Beginners to Grow
Different varieties than what is in supermarkets
Ambo is a very attractive early maturing versatile parti-coloured variety with good foliage and tuber late blight resistance. High yielding in a wide range of soil types and presents good drought resistance. Resistance to late blight on tubers. Popular with growers for its good blight and scab resistance the plant produces a high yield of floury potatoes which can be boiled or baked
Short oval tuber with white skin and cream flesh. Lovely salad potatoes with a smooth light waxy texture. Great organic variety due to high blight, scab and blackleg resistance..
Chefs and cooks will love the versatility of the potato Casablanca. Good for all uses from boiling and chipping to mash and roasting.
This potato variety has been awarded the RHS Award of Garden Merit because it has proved to be reliable in appropriate conditions and a good performing plant. For more information on RHS Award of Garden Merit plants visit .rhs.org.uk/plants
Charlotte is best known for its culinary excellence, of course it is French. Best eaten fresh as a salad it can be stored up till Christmas. It is noted for good resistance against slugs and common scab leading to good appearance. Charlotte potatoes have a fresh flavour which tastes great either hot or cold. They are ideal boiled as part of a salad as they hold their shape well and can even be roasted whole.
This is another potato with an RHS Awards of Garden Merit.
Multipurpose variety which can produce nice waxy salad potatoes if harvested early or can be left in ground for a heavy crop of baking potatoes. It has good resistance to late blight as well as a range of other diseases. This variety has a lovely pinkish skin.
