Rosemary Guiot

“My current favourite is Kestrel: normally a good crop and a delicious potato.  I grew Marfona once, as I had bought them and liked the taste, but they suffered the worst slug attack I have ever had.”

Rodney King

“Pink Fir Apple is well worth growing. Good flavour and waxy texture, and is good hot or cold with salads and with pasta dishes. I grew them for the first time last year and had quite a reasonable yield, but there was little blight around, an issue that could be of concern for a late maincrop variety.”

Sue and Mike Sanderson

“Our favourites from last year are Rooster, good crop of large red skinned potatoes, great for baking in jackets. Also Pink Fir Apple, reliable cropper in bags or in the soil, lovely taste when steamed or boiled, no peeling required.”

Robert Taylor

“For early potatoes I have found Orla to be best in the past, and last year I had a very large crop of large Cara potatoes, they are good for baking, roasting or going in soup.  The Lady Cristl, Desiree and Anya were good and we are still eating them.
I store my potatoes in paper sacks in the garage on a pallet but I lost quite a lot because they still froze and then of course went soft. I guess I should have put a blanket over them when the temperature dropped below zero.”

Danni Gunn

“I grew Cara, Maris piper and Charlotte last year.  I had heard that Charlotte wasn’t a very reliable variety but I thought I would give them a go.  I grew them in containers so they wouldn’t take up much space and although the frost got to them early on, I still got quite a lot of really nice potatoes that looked good and tasted even better. ”

Joe and Margaret Guttridge

“We like pink fir apple, a main crop salad potato. This variety is the first main crop we have really felt worthwhile growing, basically because:-
1) it tastes a bit like an early spud even when eaten later in the year, which most spuds don’t.

2) It doesn’t boil to a ‘mush’ and therefore works well in stews, veg curries.
Generally we have found main crop spuds are so cheaply available on the roadside that they are not worth devoting the space to them & have traditionally only grown earlies & second earlies.”

John and Sandy Young

Early: Sharpe’s Express is our favourite. Always grow in a bed close to home to be able monitor the growing conditions e.g. frosts. Recently we have started to grow Swift, which is also a lovely potato very early and a nice shape.

Salad: We grow Nicola & Charlotte, both give us a lovely tasting potato hot or cold and if you take care of your storing you can keep for use until the following spring.

Main Crop: Picasso is the family favourite. Slightly creamy with pink eyes it is a massive cropper, ideal for roasting, mash or jacket potatoes. It can be prone to slug damage but plant early April and harvest in August before the slugs are too active and also before the blight (on the past 3 years record)

The other reliable variety is Desiree this red skinned potato is also very universal on the cooking front, a good cropper and the strong point is its skin, which seems to cope better with slugs.

Ted Hatwood

(early)

Scotland

(2^nd early)

(2^nd early)

(main crop)

(main crop)

plenty of disease resistance.

Marie Wellings

“Vales Emerald gave a crop of around 15 spuds per two seed potato of all sizes. Tasted nice. Grew as main crop in an old cooking oil tin.
Maris Peer grown as first earlies and second earlies. Around 15 spuds per 2 seed potatoes. Less yield in a washing machine drum and old compost bags. The compost bag growers also had the company of two mice who took a liking to them! However very tasty to all. Maris Peer tasted very creamy.”

My colleague Keeley grew Rocket variety as a first early, which was fairly hardy. Gained a high yield in a raised bed.
Pink fir apple – susceptible to blight, low yield, second early, grown in potato bags. Very nice with gorgeous flavour and very unusual looking; pink and furry, just like it says.

And another colleague, Heidi – grew Charlotte, she had never grown spuds before. Grown in ground, excellent yield. Sown as a maincrop in June and  harvested in September. Very tasty compared to shop bought spuds.