Grow perfect potatoes
The humble British potato is no great beauty, but it’s easy, reliable and tasty too. Helen Billiald explains what to do, and which cultivars to go for
Growing potatoes is child’s play. You put one tuber in the ground and a few months later there are dozens of duplicates to unearth. It can’t fail to bring a smile to your face. But when it comes to growing your own, sweep away images of self-sufficiency and potato-plantation allotments. It’s far more fun to grow small numbers of a few tasty cultivars, not to mention easier on precious garden space. You can even grow potatoes in patio containers. The dizzying wealth of cultivars means you could choose a different one every year for life and still not try them all. The kitchen is a good place to start narrowing this choice down. Do you want a waxy potato or something more floury? Are you after a good salad spud or do you prefer them roasted, mashed or baked? Perhaps you want to make your own crisps or a killer dauphinoise?
To help guide the grower, potatoes are also split into groups depending on their speed of growth; first earlies, second earlies and maincrops. If you’re short on space, don’t bother with slow-growing maincrops. First earlies, usually tasty small new potatoes, are ready in as little as 10 weeks, so you can be savouring these in June. Second earlies are nearer 13 weeks whereas maincrops (which are also sometimes classed as early or late) take 15 to 20 weeks, need more space to grow and are at greater risk of blight. In the interest of fairness maincrops do include some stonkingly good potatoes; ‘Maris Piper’ is ideal for chips and the weirdly knobbly ‘Pink Fir Apple’ is delicious. Maincrops are also the way forward if you’d like large harvests to store. Chitting is the technique to get potato growth under way indoors when the weather remains hostile outside. It helps speed things along, especially for earlies. Arrange the tubers with their ‘eyes’ facing upwards in egg cartons. Place them in a cool, light spot out of direct sunlight for 4-6 weeks. You’re after a temperature of about 10C (50F). Too dark or too warm and they’ll turn leggy instead of the short, stubby, dark green or purple shoots you’re after.
When and how to plant
Planting time is a game of risk between the desire for an early harvest and the peril of foliage getting hit by a late frost. First earlies can be planted from late February if you’re tucking them in a greenhouse or polytunnel, or outside in early March if you’re in a sheltered part of the country (late March if not). Second earlies are usually planted in April and maincrop potatoes in late April and May. Avoid planting into cold, wet ground. You’ll get the best crop by planting in a sunny spot on fertile, well-drained ground and it’s important to rotate them around the garden year to year to minimise disease. Improve soil for your next year’s crop in autumn, adding plenty of well-rotted organic matter such as manure.