So many varieties to choose from

It's hard enough choosing which variety of potato to grow from those available in garden centres and nurseries but when you start to browse a specialist grower like Alan Romans where there are over 130 varieties to choose from the task becomes just that but more difficult. There is a bit of help on hand on the site as a description of each variety is given most with a photo. Alan Roman's prices are competitive too.

It's always a bit of a lottery choosing potato varieties as some do well one year and not another if the conditions change. What grows well in a wet year may be a flop if it is very dry. Flavour can also depend on soil, fertliser etc.

We will grow a few potatoes in potato bags to try and get some early as this was fairly successful last year when we had our first new potatoes in June.

The rest will be grown on the plot using our lazy method - involving a trowel rather than a spade -which has served us well now for several years. For more information click here

This year we have ordered International Kidney which would be called Jersey Royals if we were growing them on Jersey. We grew these last year for the first time and liked them. We'll also be growing Lady Christl again.

We bought some Maris Bard quite late from a garden centre last year after we had decided that we were going to try out growing potatoes in bags. To be honest the only reason we bought it was because the bag of seed potatoes was less wrinkled and not sprouting as the other varieties were. We liked the flavour so we will be growing it again this year but from better quality tubers (we hope). We will be growing Red Duke of York again. These have really attractive early foliage too - its very purple. 

We like to try something new each year and this year the new variety for us will be Winston.

All the ones already mentioned are classed as first earlies. We've grown Charlotte which is a second early for several years now and it has always done well so that is also back on the list as is another second early Nadine.

We will also be growing Nicola as a early maincrop and International Kidney can be grown as an early maincrop too.

We have dropped three varieties from last year's list one is Ulster Chieftain which didn't produce a good crop - in fact it was pathetic compared to other varieties - it isn't on Alan Roman's list this year so maybe it just didn't do well generally. We also found it disintegrated when boiling or steaming.

Juliette has been dropped too, although it is a good variety it is also absent from Alan Roman's list. We have also dropped Sarpo Mira  which we have grown as a banker against blight for the past couple of years but to be honest this year it is still in the ground as we hadn't got round to digging it up when the weather turned against us. That just goes to show that it isn't over impressive in the flavour stakes.

We don't grow any second maincrop as we like the potatoes to have matured before blight strikes and we also find that salad varieties seem to be less likely to be devastated by slugs.

By the way the flowers are attracive too if you take the time to get up closely and notice them.

One little tip that could come in useful - a while ago someone on our site suspected that his seed potatoes had been affected by herbicide poisoning - we tried to follow this up but couldn't progress as he hadn't kept the reference and batch numbers that are supposed to be on all certified seed potatoes. Who does? This is the only means of identifying where potatoes have come from and so it may be worth making a note just in case!

By the way if you are a visitor to Martyn's blog you will know that some of our stored potatoes are turning black after being hit hard by the frost. Let's hope enough survive to keep us going 'til the new potatoes arrive.