Pink fir apple potatoes

[cestrian]

I have got some pink fir apple seed potatoes. They are really unusual looking spuds and remind me more of oca (which I am also growing for the first time this year) than potatoes.

Has anyone got any good tips, like when to plant them and how far apart to plant them and yields etc.

[cestrian]

[peanuts]

PFA are by far our favourite potatoes, as they are so versatile, keep well, and have a good flavour.  I have always treated them as a main crop as far as planting time goes, so later than early potatoes.  I do put them out to chit (start growing small shoots) but, like main crop, they don't produce very much.  Distance is same as main crop.  Having said that blithely
I never measure anything for any potatoes!  It's probably about 18ins between plants and perhaps 2ft between rows.  PFA do  grow taller than early potatoes, and fall over a bit.  You can lift some early and eat as new potatoes or salad potatoes as the flesh always stays firm.  I keep them mainly for use in winter as again they stay firm even when cut in small pieces and added to a stew and cooked for  a long time. So we lift them in August here in France, but it was more like early Sept in Hertfordshire.  They always gave a good yield.
Hope this helps.

[cestrian]

Thanks for the info peanuts. Looking forward to growing these.

[Chrispy]

I plant mine the same time as the first earlys, but harvest last of all.

I had to cut down my main crop early last year due to blight, but the pink fir apple seemed to be resistant, so another good reason to grow them.

[small]

Spacing? Double the number you first thought of! They grow huge and are very floppy but worth every inch. The nicest potato ever, and they last for ages. They were my only potato not to suffer from the wet weather last year.

[irridium]

oh that's good to know, but I've always been put by their knobbliness but after much praise by the organic group that i bought them from, I decided that the flavour will be the main factor in this. If they last well and can be grown as mains, then I think I might buy more (shall I? as I'm looking to buy Wilja or Yukon Gold again this year)

[daveylamp993]

 I Grow a few Pink Fir Apple,but my favourite salad potato is ANYA Very productive in the ground and in buckets in the greenhouse or outside during the early spring/summer,i had some of these in buckets outside on the patio and harvested them at the end of October,the beauty of using buckets is that you can put them in the greenhouse if frost is forecast,They have a lovely Nutty flavour,Give them a try,they are well worth the effort.

[Vinlander]

I used to grow PFA maybe 10 years ago but a few bad blight years meant that ever since I've followed a resolution to plant nothing later than 2nd earlies.

I did try digging PFA early one year but the crop wasn't worthwhile - though this is hardly conclusive.

Also we've had much worse blight years since.

I'm trying Anya and Ratte this year to get some flavour back in that PFA direction.

Cheers.

[chriscross1966]

THey're a lovely spud taste wise, but they're not like the modern varieties.... in common with a lot of the other "ancient heritage" ones the growth is pretty rampant, they have a nasty habit of throwing tubers a long way from the centre of the plant and my neice (5 at the time) upon seeing photos of the crop asked me "Why are you growing alien potatoes Uncle Chris?"....

They aren't in any way blight tolerant, if the weather is at all conducive to blight you have to spray, or pull them out... there's unlikely to be much of a crop under them before the end of August adn I always reckoned that early October was the sensible lifting time.

THey're gross feeders, no such thing as too much BFB and chicken poo as far as they're concerned....

chrisc

[bridbod]

Grew them in 2011 and got a good crop. Be prepared to laugh your head off at harvest time. I call them mutants since their freaky shapes are just brilliant