Allotments 4 All

Hi everyone. I heard about this site in "One man and his dig" - very good book! Also starting a smallish half plot allotment, so lots to learn. Doubt I'll be able to provide much help to others at first, apart from the opportunity to learn from my mistakes, but I'll try where I can.

Looked at some seed potatoes in Homebase today and realised none of them said whether they were first earlies, second earlies, maincrop etc - simply gave the name - Charlotte, Desiree, Maris Piper, Maris Peer, Pink Fir Tree, King Edward.

I'm inclined towards an earlier variety as I've heard it's good to get them out before blight comes along, and also interested in taking some as new potatoes prior to that (if I understand the new potato process correctly). Ideally they'll be good roasties once fully grown.

Can anyone recommend a variety that might suit, and whether it's sensible to get them from Homebase as opposed to anywhere else?

Many thanks

Start here & work up!

http://www.britishpotatoes.co.uk/potato-varieties/

http://www.allotment.org.uk/vegetable/potato/potato-flavour-type.php

and welcome to the site Pieman.  ;D

Welcome to A4A Pieman ;D

That looks a great site Tim ;)............lots to look at there PMan.

Hello and welcome.

Lots of questions here.... But you got in before me Tim, so hopefully Pieman's half way through to lots of answers already!

For earlies, everyone's got their own favourite, but at the moment Lady Chryst's getting lots of thumbs up.

If you want one you can lift early but leave to mature, Charlotte's quite good. (But on the whole the ones that are good early go iffy on you later and the ones good later take ages to be ready!)

For roast potatoes, King Edward is, well King! (But it doesn't like all soils!) Ask around on the site and find what does best there. I find that Picasso gives far better results, but that's my soil.

And Desiree seems to be an all-win spud.

Try three different ones & make notes; next year grow your favourite and 2 new ones. Welcome to the wonderful world of allotments!

Wow! Can't believe all the quick responses - thanks very much everyone.

Shall now spend the evening reading about potatoes on those links - thanks Tim.

Cheers

An afterthought.

True or false, I do find the Red varieties, where available of course, a cleaner crop.

PS Never be surprised at anything on this site!!

Welcome to the site Pieman. Whereabouts in the country are you. The plot we have is on sandy soil. We grow Pentland Javelin as an early and we had great success with Nadine and Desiree as a main crop. We are going to add Lady Christl to our early crop this year as everyone is saying how good it is. Thats one of the good things about this site we can recomend the stuff we have grown if it turns out to be ok.

Hiya, pieman, nice to meet you  ;D
we had no luck at all with king eddies, full of slugs on our clay ridden soil, we, like Tim, find the red ones less prone  :)

Welcome from me too Pieman.
Good luck with growing your potatoes. Let us know how you get on with the varieties you opted for.

Lauren  :)

Welcome, Pieman!

Many thanks for the warm welcome.

Shirlton, I'm in Tonbridge, Kent, and currently just hugely chuffed to have finally got a bit of allotment space. Fair bit still to do to get it ready, but I guess that's all part of the fun.

Currently liking Trevor_D's idea of 3 varieties - perhaps Charlotte, Desiree and Lady Chryst by the look of it.

Thanks again everyone.

So you are in the nice warm south eh! You should do well.

Hi Pieman and welcome. I find this a really good site for info on potatoes .

http://www.alanromans.com/c-634-potatoes.aspx