The First New Potatoes!

It’s July and even though it’s been a pretty wet and cold one it’s time to harvest the first of my new potatoes, one the best days of the year! You just can’t beat homegrown jersey royals with melted butter and some freshly picked broad beans to eat with them… yummy!

As you all know I like to grow a variety called International Kidney (formerly known as Jersey Royals!) which are an early salad variety and extremely delicious. Last year I had a good crop from my two rows and decided to grow four rows this year thinking I would harvest lots and lots of little nuggets… that wasn’t the case! The harvest was poor and I ended up digging one whole row of 9 potato plants. I hadn’t done anything different to last year and have been rotating beds etc so all I can really blame it on is the weather seeing as it hasn’t been the hottest. The rain has also created another problem and one which I have never faced before… the dreaded blight. It thrives in wet conditions over 10 celcius and I noticed a few leaves turning a mouldy brown colour the day before I pulled up the row of potatoes. Drastic measures came into hand and I cut back all the foliage, placing it all in a black plastic bag. Ideally I would have liked to have burnt it there and then but I was heading off to the Wales the next day (which is where I am currently writing this blog!)

Nonetheless the potatoes were delicious and we ate half of the harvest with some freshly picked broad beans and some bacon, it was absolutely delicious! I also harvested a few more sweet peas and cosmos to take home and put in a jar, I am loving taking a handful of flowers home after every visit to the plot. The last thing I picked up was one of my red onions which had fallen over and ripped some of the roots out, it was a good size and there’s plenty more waiting to be harvested soon. The first proper harvest from the allotment and hopefully the first of many more!