Select Potato Varieties

Potato Varieties
- select your variety & grow more spuds -

There are many remarkable potato varieties available for you to grow at home. From different sizes, colors, shapes, textures and tastes, to your preferred cooking style and season.

And for the organic gardener there's a choice to be made among disease resistant and high yielding potato varieties, and varieties that suite your kind of soil. Check below.

New Potatoes
from my garden

these had delicate skin easily rubbed or brushed off

these as good as new after 3 months in store.

THE CHOICE IS YOURS WITH HOME GROWN POTATOES:

From early varieties to maincrop - you can pick them 'new' or put them in store,
Favourite tasting varieties from the sweeter kinds to the valued nutty flavoured varieties,
Potatoes to suit your cooking style:- boiled, baked, chipped, roasted, mashed...,
From rounds to ovals; flattened tubers to fingerlings,
Add color and texture with pink or purple blotched skins, brown netted skins, or blue skins and blue flesh,
Most importantly for the organic grower - choose disease and pest resistant varieties,
You can go for high yielding varieties too.

The wide range of potato varieties is a gift to the home grower. So let's get growing...

Below I relate notes from my own potato growing and research.
One particular reference deserves special mention: The Potato Book an excellent reference from an industry expert.
Another useful book The Great Potato Book describes the potato varieties, their suitability for different types of cooking along with recipes.

Top Rated Potato Varieties For Organic Growing.

Sarpo Mira: Late Maincrop Top rated for late blight resistance - high yielding and with vigor to regenerate new leaves, suppress weeds and, it tolerates a wide range soils. Good for cooking too.

Bred in eastern Europe the Sarpo varieties: 'Mira', 'Axona', 'Una'... a welcome introduction to potato growing in the wetter summers of recent times.

Sarpo Mira and Sarpo Axona are available to U.K. gardeners from here.

Popular Choice For Early Potato Varieties

Swift:  First Earlies   Fewer larger tubers than Rocket. Alan Romans recommends this for growing in pots, or undercover.

Rocket:  First Earlies   Like Swift this potato is very early and needs to be eaten early. Its notable shortcomings include not maturing well and a mild flavour.

Nicola:  First Early   Salad potato sought for its flavour and disease resistance. However the blight resistance has now been lost.

Otherwise, and (according Alan Romans) with more space, the plant is able to grow for a longer period.

A Popular Choice Potato Varieties For Baking

Marfona: Second Early A popular choice for waxy baking potatoes. High yielding but susceptible to slugs.
Find these & more choice of seed potatoes here.

My Own Selection To Grow In 2010

Note: The reason I can grow so many potato varieties in one year is due to their current availability in smaller packs.

Orla: - First Early   A blight resistant variety which qualifies it for planting in succession and because modern blight survives the winter and can strike earlier.

Orla will be growing in my potato barrels in 2010.

Osprey: - Second Early   Good yields and attractive like Kestrel which is its parent. High resistance to Blackleg may qualify this spud for damper colder soils.

Osprey is my second early for 2010 to follow Kestrel, which I grew in another garden plot last year.

Santa: - Early Maincrop   Good yields expected here of flattened tubers with yellow flesh. Disease resistance includes double eelworm resistance.

Good for all types of cooking. I'm growing this in 2010 to precede Valor.

Valor: - Late Maincrop   Good resistance to tuber blight for storage purposes. Said to be high yielding on poorer soils.

You might try it on less fertile sandy soils or, like me in 2010, on new ground.

Pink Fir Apple: - Late Maincrop   Can be a problem as I'm told it's slow to grow and to form tubers. Blight can be a problem.

But the nutty flavour is supposed to be the best of all. It can't be peeled but is best cooked whole, fried, or boiled.

I'm growing some Pink Fir Apple in tubs in 2010. I will start them in good time and if they haven't produced by October I will bring them undercover.

Compare with Anya from Pink Fir Apple X Desiree. Another pleasant nutty flavoured variety but a second early and is easier to grow.

Golden Wonder: - Late Maincrop   Good for flavour and even better after storing. A very big plant and very thirsty so it will need the maximum row spacing. Alan Romans records only low yields.

Golden Wonder will be growing in my garden in 2010 for storing.
More information & seed potatoes on this link.

A Few Potato Varieties I've Grown In Previous Years.

2009

Kestrel: - Second Early   An attractive purple eyed tuber good for garden shows and in my garden in 2009.

Second earlies are useful because they take up less space than maincrop while keeping longer than earlies. Resistance to Blackleg may make this cultivar suitable for damper colder soils.

International Kidney: - Early Maincrop   Provides beautiful kidney shaped tubers for cooking 'new' when small. Larger tubers too - have a lovely buttery flavour and make good mash.

I grew International Kidney in 2009 - it is grown to produce the well- known 'Royal Jersey Potatoes' that come from a few specially cultivated fields on the channel island of Jersey.

Lady Christl:  First Early   I grew this cultivar in 2009. It took a very long time to chit and may need a short warm period to spur into chitting or starting earlier. Mine were overtaken by second earlies but once they got going they did well. Definitely susceptible to folia blight.

Cara:  Late Maincrop   High yields and disease resistance and good keeping I think make this pink blotched cultivar an attractive variety.

Keeps well and holds a waxy moist texture.
I wish I'd grown more of it in 2009 but ran out of because it is a late cropper.

REMEMBERED FROM BEFORE 2009...

Desiree: - Early Maincrop   Provides a good crop, grows in dryer soils, and is very versatile for cooking.

Not a variety for sandy, gravely or limey soils. I found it to be susceptible to common scab even when grown in containers - but I did add bone meal. If your soil supports this disease try Romano (= Desiree X ? ) instead.

Red Duke of York: - Early   Good to grow in potato barrels early to miss the blight. The oval tubers have a good flavour but don't overcook.

I got a big crop of well-sized tubers from my potato barrel but started them later in the season.

Home Guard: - Early   Grow them early and eat them fresh as it doesn't keep well.

I added plenty of garden compost to my soil and got a good crop. The plant is smaller and doesn't take up too much room.
Get seed potatoes to grow in U.K. & Europe on this link.

American Potato Varieties

The Russet Burbank (known as the Idaho potato) dominates the market in the U.S.A. as it used by familiar names in the food processing industry.

However new potatoes may be finding their ground and it will be great to see a more diverse potato market. The home grower can take the lead as a whole range of interesting varieties become available to grow. You can have lots of fun with fingerling varieties, blue potatoes, gold potatoes and others.

To check them out: find links to American potato varieties here.

Not prize winners but...

...they Still Look Good After Keeping

Dry Matter Content in Different Potato Varieties Effects How The Potatoes Cook

Potato varieties are rated from waxy textured to floury textured on a scale from 1 to 9. They are also classed by their shape round to oval.

Waxy textured potatoes feel moist and hold a firm shape during boiling. They're a good choice for salad potatoes.

Dry potatoes with granular flesh turn out dry and fluffy when cooked They're great for mash.
American examples: the Russet Burbank, Red Viking to name only two.
U.K. examples:

But this is only one factor that makes your potato suit your cooking.

Shape, Size and Skin Texture

Shape and size of the potato tuber, and the thickness of the skin are also important. Long oval tubers are well made for chipping. Large tubers and a thick skin help to make a crisp baked potato.

Small sized and finger potatoes might be just right for potato wedges, frying and grilling.

The quality of the potato changes from being new to being old, so you can cook the same variety different ways depending on its age.

...I didn’t mention Shepherd’s Pie, vegetable burger, hash browns, stew… this is what organic growing is about!! ...how do you like your spuds?

You can make your choice today from the quality seed potatoes on these links

UK Potato Seed ++ American Potato Seed