Medwyn Williams advises on potato varieties to try and fleecing onions
Gavin Horton, by email
Medwyn says: 'Maxine' is a good red-skinned maincrop variety that has all the qualities required to be a good show variety as well as excellent for the kitchen. The shape is oval with a nice skin finish and the tubers are as uniform as you could expect from any other potato. However, the skin colour can be variable from one potato to another, compromising uniformity.
If you're looking for the same sort of colour as 'Maxine' I'd go for 'Mozart'. This produces high yields of oval, smooth, red tubers with pale yellow flesh. Grown as a late maincrop, it shows good resistance to golden eelworm and slugs, making it a useful choice in gardens that suffer these pests. Although it’s described as a late maincrop, I've had some lovely tubers from it during early September.
The best varieties are those that regularly win at top shows such as the NVS Championships. I'll bracket them into white and coloured, with the latter covering part-coloured, too. The best show-winning white is undoubtedly 'Winston', with its round to oval shape possessing a fantastic skin quality. This is an early variety and you have to start checking it for size after 10 weeks as it can grow too large. Another white is 'Sherine' and I've also had success with 'Casablanca', another very early variety with good skin finish and very shallow eyes.
There are more quality coloured varieties available – the one regularly winning is 'Kestrel', a second early with a purple splash around the rose end. It's an ideal variety for chipping during August and September. 'Amour' has similar markings but the splash is a soft pink. One of my favourites is the part-coloured variety 'Bonnie', a round to oval second early with a creamy skin and a pink splash around the eyes that are very shallow. The skin finish is as good as you are likely to get on any potato and it also
produces numerous tubers of even shape and size.