Rate my potato – we tell you how to get 'the right score,writes FIONNUALA FALLON
MANY OF us affectionately call potatoes ‘spuds’, a peculiar sounding word, the origins of which are lost in history. Some say it’s an acronym that stands for the probably apocryphal Society for the Prevention of Unwholesome Diets, supposedly a 19th-century pressure group that campaigned against the cultivation of the potato in Britain.
Nice story but not true, say most etymologists, who believe the word comes from a type of garden tool used for digging. But whatever its origins (and despite its calamitous role in Irish history), the humble spud is still one of our favourite vegetables.
Boiled, steamed, fried or roasted, it’s very much a staple of the Irish diet, and is the one vegetable that almost every urban farmer wants to grow.
In the OPW’s walled kitchen garden in Phoenix Park, it’s well over three months since gardeners Meeda Downey and Brian Quinn planted four different varieties of seed potatoes, and the first of the crop is now ready to harvest.
“We planted Nadine, Charlotte, Roosters and Sante. The first two are classed as second-earlies (which take about 110 days to produce potatoes) while the other two are main-crop potatoes , which are slower (135-160 days),” explains Downey. “We’ve just started lifting some of the Nadine crop, and they’re absolutely delicious. There’s lots on each plant too, which is great.”
Most urban farmers, while familiar with the technical classification of potatoes as mentioned above, are more interested in the all-important question of whether they’re floury or waxy – the Irish traditionally like a floury potato, unlike the British, who are fonder of the waxy varieties.
Floury potatoes are drier, fluffier, and are particularly suitable for mashing, baking or frying, while waxy types are firmer and are delicious boiled or used in salads.
So how do the Phoenix Park varieties measure-up? Well, on a scale of one to nine, with one being most waxy and nine being most floury, Nadine comes in at two and Charlotte at four, with Roosters and Sante both at six.
If you’re looking for a potato with a fabulously floury score of nine, then Golden Wonders are your potato of choice, while a variety like Duke of York scores a wonderfully waxy one.
All the above scores come courtesy of the British Potato Council’s great website – www.britishpotatoes.co.uk – which also gives a potted history of the humble spud, along with recipes (young children will love the baked potato dinosaurs).
Strangely, though, the website gives no advice on preventing common diseases such as potato blight. Many gardeners will already be familiar with the protective fungicidal spray, Dithane which is used as a preventative, but this is not approved for organic use. In OPW’s walled garden, Quinn has been using a copper-based spray, which seems, fingers-crossed, to have done the trick so far. It’s still early days, however, as the disease usually only makes its presence felt from midsummer onwards. He’s also been careful to remove what he calls ‘volunteers’ (any of last year’s potatoes which have managed to overwinter), as these can also harbour diseases.
Spacing plants widely apart, deeply earthing-up developing plants, and removing and burning any obviously affected stems or leaves are other ways of reducing the risk of infection. In confirmed cases of blight, cut away all foliage and then leave the crop in the ground for a further three weeks before lifting, to avoid infecting the tubers.
Quinn and Downey have also been experimenting with different methods of cultivation, to see how it affects crop size and quantity.
Downey likes to plant the seed potatoes directly into the ground and then earth-up as required, while Quinn believes that pre-prepared, raised drills, although labour-intensive, are the best way to get an abundant crop. It’ll be at least another month or so before the verdict is in, but Quinn is already confident that his Roosters will win. “It’s going to be a huge crop,” he predicts. “All that lovely loose soil that we prepared for them – it’s guaranteed to make a difference.” Downey’s not entirely convinced, however, so only time will tell.
Those of you who planted sweet corn earlier this year will be interested in the progress of the crop in the walled garden, which Downey and Quinn planted out back in early June as young, glasshouse-raised plants. Now about 1.2m tall, the young female cobs (three to four per plant) are forming nicely and the OPW gardeners are predicting a bumper harvest in early autumn.
“We grew a green manure, perennial ryegrass over the winter, then strimmed it and rotavated it into the soil a couple of times before planting out the sweet corn,” says Downey. “It definitely seems to have produced great results in soil fertility.”
This year, the OPW gardeners are trying a super-sweet variety of sweet corn called Earlibird, which has a longer shelf-life than Sundance, the standard variety that they grew last year. Quinn and Downey will be keeping a close eye on the developing cobs, which form low down on the plant below the male, pollen-bearing tassels. “The wind gently knocks the pollen loose,” explains Quinn, tapping a plant to demonstrate. “And then it falls, pollinating the female flowers below. Once the silks (the silky bundles of golden stigmas surrounding the female flowers) start to turn dark brown, we’ll check regularly for ripeness by gently pulling back the sheath and pressing on the kernels. If they’re ripe, a milky liquid will ooze out.”
And talking of early birds, last year, just when the crop was ready to eat, a horde of crows arrived and quickly settled on the juicy cobs before hungrily devouring them (there was no time to net them).
“There was absolutely no shifting them, they just eyeballed us when we tried, but they were hilarious to watch,” says Downey. “They didn’t come near the garden for the rest of the year – they must just really love sweet corn.”
Fionnuala Fallon is a garden designer and writer
Next week, Urban Farmer will give an update on the progress of the pumpkin and tomato crops.
