How to get the best out of your potatoes

02.03.2024 - 05:31 / irishtimes.com / Fionnuala Fallon

They say that you can tell a surprising amount about a gardener by the kind of potatoes they grow. Some of us, for example, are traditionalists who’ll plump for the floury, fluffy ‘British Queen’ (colloquially known as ‘Queens’) every time. Others are passionate foodies who prefer the firm, waxy, flavoursome, yellow flesh of a salad potato such as ‘Charlotte’, or the heirloom ‘La Ratte’. Individualists, meanwhile, often like to seek out unusual kinds, such as the dark magenta-fleshed ‘Vitanoire’, or the knobbly ‘Pink Fir Apple’, the heritage variety famed for its more-ishness.

But as another season of potato planting kicks off later this month, it’s important to bear in mind that colour, taste, texture and good looks aren’t everything when it comes to choosing the perfect variety to grow in your garden or allotment. Instead, it ideally also needs to be vigorous and productive, as well as resistant to a range of pests and diseases. The number of weeks that it takes from planting to harvest is yet another important consideration. First-earlies and second-earlies, for example, are faster growing and much quicker to crop, meaning they’re less likely to succumb to blight. But the downside is that these early varieties are also typically much less suitable for storage.

Unfortunately, good disease resistance is not something that can be said of our most popular heritage varieties, such as the aforementioned ‘British Queen’ and ‘Pink Fir Apple’, as well as ‘Kerr’s Pink’, ‘Arran Pilot’, ‘Maris Piper’ and Sharpe’s Express’, all of which are now known for their vulnerability to potato blight.

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This vulnerability makes them a