Try-before-you-grow potatoes

/ karen

Ready to eat potatoes

I’ve often thought it would be a great idea to try out different varieties before committing to ordering and growing seed potatoes. Well now you can do just that. Potato House are selling ready-to-eat varieties of heritage, coloured, rare and organic spuds!

It’s a new venture for Potato House and there’s a dedicated area of the website for ordering ready-to-eat potatoes : https://www.potatohouse.co.uk/potatoes-to-eat/

I ordered five varieties, Arran Victory, Blue Annelise, Heidi Red, Pink Fir Apple and one simply called ‘Chips’ for cooking chips and wedges.

The coloured potatoes really appealed to me, as it’s not easy to buy them locally. I like the idea of keeping heritage varieties going, and it’s lovely to try something new. Potatoes arrived promptly after ordering. I was delighted with the quality. The potatoes are a good size and beautiful condition.

‘Chips’

Amy from Potato House says

“We are renowned for our colourful range of seed potatoes. These look and taste amazing. The best thing about growing your own produce is experimenting with colours that are not readily available in supermarkets.

We grow the purples, pinks and the in-between with multi-coloured skin for you to experiment with in your gardens and allotments.

In some varieties it is only the skin which is coloured and in some, the colour goes beyond the skin for vibrant additions to any plate. Think blue mash, purple chips and red crisps!

Unusual colours on your plate is a talking point – whether it is toddlers or friends round for a meal – everyone is impressed. The toddlers get told that the blue mash has superpowers and the adults will check if blue potatoes have superpowers!

Nutritional values are the same although there are some studies which indicate that a range of food colours is better for you.

Growing and cooking coloured potatoes takes no extra skill. You grow according to the maturity and then cook according to the potato type. So if you have a second early, smooth, blue seed potato such as Salad Blue, it will grow like any other second early taking about 14 weeks to mature and then will be delicious as a mash!

Try some home made chips and crisps – a lot easier than you would think!

Some of these varieties have been around for a long time – your grandparents would have had some, and others have been bred more recently giving protection against diseases.

Our range of seed potatoes comes in 6-tuber nets and 1kg nets (as well as larger sizes) and discounts start when you buy only 5 nets of any combination. Our range of ready-to-eat potatoes comes in 5k, 10kg, and 15kg bags. Both are delivered direct to you from our farm.

We do, of course, have white skin and flesh seed potatoes too. We’re here to help you decide so let us know if you have any questions.” https://www.potatohouse.co.uk/

Pink Fir Apple
Some tasty purple potatoes I grew this summer. They kept their colour during cooking.

I’m using some of my potatoes for Christmas, but I’m also looking through my cookery books to decide what else to make with them. I probably won’t be able to resist buying all of them as seed potatoes too. To have beautiful varieties like these coming out of the veg plot next year is a very cheerful prospect indeed.

Are any of you looking through catalogues and on-line deciding what varieties to grow right now? What potatoes would you recommend, and have any of you tried the more unusual red, blue and black varieties? Thanks for reading my blog. Happy gardening! And happy cooking too!

23 thoughts on “Try-before-you-grow potatoes”

    • I’ve seen Gypsy for sale. Such a pretty potato. We also love Lady Christl, a very delicious salad potato, and we always grow Charlotte. Looking forward to getting some gardening on the go soon, and setting out my seed potatoes to sprout. Thanks for reading the blog, and Happy New Year! Karen

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  2. Karen, I grew Red Ammellie and found it both tasty and a good grower. It appears not to be available this year from the potato house. I grow first and second earlies as no dig, as they don’t grow downward but more sideways so need a good mulch but not the depth that maincrops need.

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    • It looks like Highland Burgundy is being offered as a substitute. It’s one of the parent plants, along with La Ratte. Yes, first and second earlies do seem easier to grow, and there’s not so much danger of them getting blight as they finish growing earlier than the main crops. I’ve had quite a bit of success growing them in bags in the poly tunnel. Last summer, I didn’t harvest all the potatoes in one go, but just took a few at a time from the bags and left the others to grow on. It feels cheerful to be talking about growing potatoes and looking forward to spring. The cold weather has been difficult hasn’t it. All the best. Karen x

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      • There may be other emtirely red postaoes offered at the Nottingham Organic Gardeing Group’s potao day on the 28th of January at the Sherwood Church on Edwrds Lane. I’m a member and will ask to see thelist which will be available soon. Happy to share. I can always purchase and transfer to you another time. Let me know?

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    • Unfortunately, we don’t have Red Emmalie this year, we grow around 70 varieties, and try to rotate the rare varieties around and so can’t grow everything each year (among other reasons!) We hope to have this again for you in the near future.

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  5. The coloured ones would look lovely in a special dish. We have had limited success with them the past two years and so the neighbouring farmer has been supplying us. Good, but not quite like home-grown! Enjoy trying out new recipes. 😃

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