United in Sauté Potatoes

All the potatoes are in storage now prompted by fear of blight and it is surely time to sing the anthem of the Slovenian 'Association for the Recognition of Sauté Potatoes with Onions as a Main Dish'. Does anybody know the tune?

Sweet is the wine and cool is beer
But best of all is the sauté potatoes
It's not butter, it's not fruit or cheese
But my friend it's sauté potatoes

All types of food can be sources of disease
But we are healthy through sauté potatoes
And we got together here and found our peace
For we are united in sauté potatoes

Potato Cakes for Tea

A few nice white potatoes must be cleanly pared, and all the eyes cut out, boiled until quite soft, and then strained from all the water; the potatoes must be well mashed up with some flour, sufficient to admit of their being rolled out to a paste. The paste must be well rolled out several times until about half an inch thick, then cut into cakes with the top of a tumbler, or into squares of a similar size. The best way to bake them is on a girdle, or, as it is called in the North, a "griddle". The cakes must be very lightly done and not allowed to become crisp. They require turning once or twice. When sufficiently baked they must be split open and buttered, and then laid together again as muffins are.
from Our Wartime Kitchen by Tom Jerrold


I lifted 21 lbs. of Pink Fir Apple potatoes today, the return on just 7 seed potatoes (I think that's good). There are two maincrops - Arran Victory and Verity - still to harvest now. So far it seems to be a better than average haul this year.

This Year's Spuds

Eighty seed potatoes chitting in the shed, so if all goes well we'll have sufficient this year. Last year I only planted out 50 and we are now down to just about 10 pounds of Pink Fir Apple and a scant few Skerry Blue.
I've just found this recipe in the Plain Cookery Book for the Working Classes for the potato-lover with an excess of same.
No.64 Potato Pie
Slice up four onions and boil them in a saucepan with two ounces of butter, a quart of water, and pepper and salt, for five minutes; then add four pounds of potatoes, peeled and cut in slices; stew the whole until the potatoes are done, and pour them into a pie-dish; cover this with stiff mashed potatoes, and bake the pie of a light brown colour.

Spudnik

Progress. I've buried alive all of my seed potatoes in the new bed at the back of the yard. They're on their own now. And through the mail flap this week came a clipping sent by friend Ren. A review from the Guardian of a new book celebrating the über tuber and it's place in our history - Propitious Esculent by John Reader. It may cover a lot of the same ground as R. Salaman's The History and Social Influence of the Potato but brings the role of the spud into the 21st century. Apparently plans are afoot to take potatoes on a mission to Mars in 20 years. Reader reports that a stand of potatoes large enough to provide an astronaut's daily nourishment will also supply all the oxygen he/she needs and mop up the CO2 as well.

Bud the Spud

I've just harvested the Roseval salad potatoes and I'm well pleased. The weather hasn't adversely affected this lot. There are 100 excluding the top row of little ones, from only 5 seed potatoes.
Here's Stompin'Tom to sing the praises of his home growed potatoes.

Has-Beans

Just polished off the last of the broad beans. In their final days the plants succumbed to chocolate spot and went downhill rather quickly - a disease of which I was hitherto unaware. The beans were still good but the foliage looked like it had been heavily dusted with cocoa powder, hence the name. It was a timely death. I need the space to plant out next spring's cabbages.
We have also been dining on some rather fine early potatoes and a few Charlotte salad potatoes AND the first courgette Costa Romanesque, a very deeply ribbed and crunchy specimen.
Alas, my first sowing of carrot seed has failed to germinate (sigh) so will have to try again. I suppose it was past it's sell by, but maybe I should be paying more heed to the lunar calendar. Peas and lettuce are happy but lots of plants (ie. cucumbers, beans and tomatoes) seem to be in a holding pattern while this bracing autumnal weather is occupying our June.

Growing from True Seed

There is just one day left to enter your photos in the International Year of the Potato Photo Competition. I'm feeling singularly uninspired right now. I'll blame the drear mid-grey, windless, room temperature 'weather' we've had, day after day, for what seems like months (I griped about this last year around the same time I'm afraid). Most of my potatoes are yet to be harvested but I did reach in and pull out a few Arran Victory tubers which made me smile.
This year I saved some of the true seeds from the fruits, in the hope that I will be the discoverer of a noteworthy variety of hitherto unimagined curiousness, and I've been casting about looking for information on growing them. Alan Romans kindly replied to an email and said to treat them much as tomato seed, which I had guessed, and expect to have small tubers by the end of the year that I can label and store and use as seed potatoes the following year. What I wanted to hear was that I could start them straight away in the greenhouse and have tiny tubers by Christmas that I could plant out in the new year. I have read that the shorter the diurnal duration of light (9-10 hours), the earlier the initiation of tubers. Has anybody out there ever tried this? I'm going to experiment with a few seeds that I'm pre-chilling now in the fridge. What the hey.

Under Ground

All my potatoes are buried now. Phew. Fifty seed potatoes at the allotment and 40 grown from true seed in a patch of the back yard. The little plants from seed are pictured below - quite promising I think, and hopefully big enough to fend for themselves in the great outdoors.

Adventures with Potato Seed

This year I've been growing some potatoes from true seed obtained from breeder Tom Wagner via Patrick. Although I got started a little late they have now developed into large healthy looking plants. But, what with all this rain and cooler weather around the corner, I'm getting increasingly anxious about disease, pestilence and the like. So as not to have all my potatoes lost in the same basket of blight, I unearthed the above yesterday. The still small but perfectly formed tubers of No.16 (French Fingerling x Magic Molly) and No.21 (John Tom Kaighin x Negro y Azul). Yet to harvest are No.25 (Wild Species x Thumbertime) and No.6 (F2 Pam Wagner) & No.11 (Pirampo x Khuchi Akita) which are just now flowering and setting fruit. I'll leave them for another couple of weeks with fingers crossed. Now, how best to store? I've read 5-10°C and 95% humidity. Is packing in wet sand as you would carrots and beets a good idea? Or perhaps the refrigerator? The plan is to chit and set out next spring for a full crop with taste testing a year from now.

Planning Ahead

" I only want to live in peace, plant potatoes and dream."
Moomintroll
I finally got around to testing my soil this fall, and found the pH to be hovering down around 5.5 to 6. Not too healthy for vegetables other than potatoes. So, I ordered two blueberry bushes which seem to appreciate acidity (for the back hedge) and then set about dusting the beds with lime. With that done it's time to settle down to my favourite task in the grower's calendar which is reading seed catalogues and planning next season's produce. Just 26 shopping days left until 2008 - International Year of the POTATO !!!

New Potatoes

This week's 'Food Programme' on Radio 4 discusses potatoes, with sound bites from our local Potato Fair. You can listen again on line if you've missed it.


Here is an update on the growth of my true potato seedlings sown January 18th. I've pricked out 50 - though there was no way of telling which ones might be of real interest - I had to limit the numbers as I haven't yet figured out where I'm going to grow them on.

Sweet Potatoes Rousted from their Bed

 My experiment on the greenhouse this year - meh. I guess they needed a longer season, but then, as they don't store as well as potatoes, and we have to eat them up sharpish ... mayhaps it's as well there isn't a heap. Lots of little squiggles that I suppose would have fattened up if the weather were to stay warm for another month. And they have been slightly neglected in the water department since the hosepipe ban ...

Stocktaking

Yesterday (Canada, Oh Canada, Day) we got a sunny afternoon so I went around the allotment and garden, camera in hand, to record the growth to date. This is the kind of list that nobody but me wants to read but I'm writing it as if someone will.
(a) A 12 foot row of climbing beans 'True Red Cranberry', after a slow start are now about 2/3 of the way up the pole, leaf amaranthe 'Kahulu' is over a foot tall, Roseval salad potatoes are in flower and 3 squash moschata 'Shishigatani' have vines 4 to 5 feet long.
(b) Corn 'Golden Bantam' (20 plants) is as high as an elephant's thigh (well knee maybe).
(c) Enough Morello cherries this year for 2 bottles of cherry schnapps methinks.
(d) Four courgette 'Costa Romanesca' are producing fruit now. I've also got three 'Albarellodi Sarzana' almost ready to plant out.
(e) One of 8 squash 'Blue Hubbard' in the foreground, some 'Weggiser' snap peas and a couple of the 10 'Green Globe' artichokes that I started for next year.
(f) Parsnips 'Half Long Guernsey' are looking hale while the cabbage 'Holland Late Winter' and brussels sprouts 'Groninger' behind are a bit pigeon-pecked.
(g)'Keswick Codlin' cooking apples will be ready in about 4 weeks.
(h) We're having salads most days to keep up with the lettuce which is thriving in this weather. In the top corner just visible are a few of the leeks I dibbed-in (?) 10 days ago - 30 'Swiss Giant Zermatt' and 45 'Siegfried'.
The cucumbers 'Kaiser Alexander' didn't get their picture taken because they have just sat and stared at me since I planted them out 4 weeks ago. Also not pictured but doing well are a dozen celeriac 'Giant Prague', 2 squash 'Marina di Chiogga', 5 squash 'Buttercup', climbing haricot beans 'Aunt Jean' and 'Soissons', dwarf bean 'Magpie' and 4 each of tomatoes 'Pink Brandywine', 'Yellow Pear', 'Stupice' and 'Isis Candy'. A dozen kale 'Nero di Toscana', 8 purple sprouting broccoli, and a dozen 'Westfalian' kale 5-6 inches in height got planted out yesterday. In modules 'Large Green' chard, corn 'Orchard Baby' and okra 'Beck's Gardenville' are about an inch high.
On Saturday I sowed a tray of lettuce 'Black Grained Simpson' and 'Craquerelle du Midi', more parsley and fennel 'Romanesco'. We have finished the early potatoes and are now on the 'Charlottes'. The 'Guerande' carrots that I thought had failed to germinate have just shown up and beetroot 'Devoy' and 'Lutz' have 2 true leaves.
Hmm, this diary could be useful in years to come if only I had kept a detailed record of sowing dates. Next year.

To Pull a Chicken for the Sick

"You must take as much cold chicken as you think proper, take off all the skin, and pull the meat into little bits as thick as a quill; then take the bones, boil them with a little salt till they are good, strain it, then take a spoonful of the liquor, a spoonful of milk, a little bit of butter as big as a large nutmeg rolled in flour, a little chopped parsley as much as will lie on a sixpence, and a little salt, if wanted, (this will be enough for half a small chicken,) put it all together into the sauce-pan, then keep shaking it till it is thick, and pour it into a hot plate."
Hannah Glasse 1747


Illustration from AgenceEureka

I am just decamping my sick bed after two weeks of fever and catarrh. I did manage to set the potatoes to chit and last week in a feeble state I drew lines in a dirt tray and sowed peppers, aubergines and 5 new varieties of True Potato Seed from Tom Wagner @ New World Seeds & Tubers.

HiHo! HiHo! ...

The allotment has just come alive again this week. The sun's been shining and the temperature is up around 18°. The broadbeans are in flower and I've got the first early 'Ulster Sceptre' and 'Roseval' salad potatoes in. I'll go back tomorrow and put in the other salad 'Charlotte' and maincrops 'Remarka' and 'Pink Fir Apple'. I've got hundreds of seedlings coming on in trays that I've been shuffling in and out of doors to catch the sun and it feels so good to finally be putting something in the ground. The half long guernsey parsnips that I started in modules (toilet rolls) are ready to get planted out now as I've just noticed the roots have found their way to the bottom. This may be quite a delicate business to get them in without damaging the tip. Otherwise I guess I'll have plenty of contestants for this year's ugliest vegetable competition.

Pathetic Fallacy

Q's departure today was accompanied by torrential rain. The garden is awash and rain barrels full and every green thing looks greener. During her four week visit she has begun work on a requiem for our hens. Once it's recorded in some fashion I will most certainly be posting a link here. And although I have been silent this past month I have made some progress in the garden. I dug a new bed and filled it with potatoes, planted out shallots and just put out cabbage and lettuce seedlings. The tomatoes are now in need of potting on again and popcorn seed has germinated! The bee colony has trebled in size and very soon we must perform a shook swarm. Whew.

Above A fragment

Arboricide

I've just cleared the weeds from the back bed and readied it to be this year's bean field. I've been finding all the potatoes that I missed digging last fall. And a lot of seedlings that, but for me, would be trees one day. I guess it wouldn't take very many years of neglect for this lot to remove all trace of my attempt at control.

Salade Niçoise

Hooray, beans are back on the menu. And these 'Early Risers' are so sweet and tender. I've written their praises before and I shall go on growing them forever. I can't keep up with all the lettuce which is starting to want to run to flower in this heat.
Still importing potatoes, olives and anchovies though.

Squash 2020

I put a question mark beside Zucca Mantovana because it doesn't look like what it oughta. It's either a sport or some mis-labelling has occurred somewhere. Not exactly a bumper year but I'm blaming lack of rain for all ills this year. Scabby potatoes, stunted beets that ran to flower, tiny miserable corn cobs, ...

IYP Countdown - 2 Days

Hitchcock rummages through a sack of potatoes at the scene of another horrible murder, Covent Garden Market, where you can buy the "fruits of evil and the horrors of vegetables".