EXTENDING THE SEASON WITH POTATOES

Grow your own potatoes, says Martin Fish, and you’ll be spoilt for choice, with plenty of varieties to choose from to keep you in spuds all year round

- Martin Fish

Potatoes have been cultivated for thousands of years in South America, but it wasn’t until the late 1500s they had found their way to the British Isles via Sir Walter Raleigh. By the late 1700s potatoes were widely grown as a staple food and are now the fourth largest food crop grown in the world.

Although potatoes are readily available to buy in supermarkets all year round, we are limited to around 15 types, whereas by growing your own you can choose from more than 500 varieties, all with their own characteristics and flavour. By growing a selection of different types it’s easy to have tasty home-grown potatoes all year round.

GROWING POTATOES

As vegetables go, potatoes are relatively easy to grow as long as you remember that they are tender and need frost protection. If you want to produce your own all year round, you will need to grow three different groups: first early, second early and maincrop. You’ll also need a fair amount of land, such as an allotment or large garden, but even on a small plot and by also growing in large pots, you can still produce a fair amount of potatoes.

When it comes to soil, potatoes are not particularly fussy. Earlies tend to grow best on lighter soil, simply because it warms up faster in spring. If growing on clay soil, it’s a good idea to work in some well-rotted manure or compost to open up the soil a little. Potatoes are greedy feeders, so a week before planting apply a general fertiliser to the soil to get the plants offto a good start.