The Dukes are coming to dinner.

There's something rewarding about growing your own potatoes, something that can't quite be explained. Maybe it's an inherently Irish thing to want to grow your own spuds, can it be traced back to famine times ? Maybe there's part of our psyche that doesn't want to get caught out again !! For me it's a family tradition there has been generations of families fed by this patch of earth and now mine are carrying on that tradition. But enough sentimentality ...... What about the spuds ?

A Queens blossom or a blossom fit for a Queen.



This is the crop in early June with the maincrop on the left and the earlies above on the right.



One month later and the Golden Wonders in the foreground are showing a lovely blossom.



This is it the moment of truth, ready for the lift, all that hard work .....



Alleluia...... A fantastic bounty the Duke of York are absolute beauties.



Oh and as for the taste, I do not have the words to describe. But I'm one damn happy potato head with this crop. I just hope the rest are equally as good.

Earthing up time.

The spuds have been flying up but the recent blast of icy air has threatened to send this progress tumbling backwards. Gardeners the length and breadth of the country have been racing to ward off the ill effects of frost damage. Luckily I have earthed up on time this year and have no casualties to report ..... yet !!



I still think growing potatoes in a raised bed is a semi ludicrous idea as the earthing up is bothersome due to a simple lack of space. But I do it anyway, Why ? These are the appropriately named " Homeguard " growing reasonably well here, I hope to be eating baby potatoes from these quite soon.



Here we have " Duke of york " and " British queens ", both are doing quite well. You may have noticed the soil difference, this is because it's in a patch of ground borrowed in the uncles garden. I much prefer this method of growing the spud but you need plenty of room, something the uncle has an abundance of ! He made the land available on the condition that I would plant his spuds for him, a small price to pay.



By his reckoning there has been a garden here for nearly two hundred years ! Near perfect conditions prevail here, black crumbly soil, south facing on a gentle slope with shelter all round. Things get planted here about a month before anywhere else. Anyway that's the earlies taken care of, the maincrop you can see on the right of the photo should be ready for earthing up sometime next week. More then......

First earlies.

I dislike planting potatoes in raised beds, although I believe the beds to be a superior system for veg growing the earthing up of potatoes causes spatial problems due to the confines of the bed. Nevertheless against all common sense and reasoning ( you will see quite a bit of this here ) I went ahead and planted 5kg of Homeguard first earlies in this bed measuring thirty two feet by five feet.



I hoped to overcome the lack of space by digging deep into the bed and creating a flat furrow like area and then planting the seed a further five inches into this. The potatoes were planted a foot apart with a foot between rows.



When the time comes for earthing up I will simply level the soil across the bed, a further earthing up will entail drawing soil from the sides or importing some if the need arises. This will pain me !



There's a lot to be said for planting potatoes in open ground but due to a lack of space my options are limited. I will however be able to plant the rest of my crop in my uncles garden which has plenty of space but is a ten mile drive from here. Ya can't win em all I suppose.