I've never been so pleased to see a potato. Thought they'd never make it.
How good was yesterday? The sun shone like it meant business, and I got a little burned. Did two hours of sowing, weeding and diverse agriculture.
I even acquired a blister. It's been about 18 months since it was possible to work outside long enough to get one of them.
But don't pack away the hot water bottle. It's back to pissing rain and March temperatures next week.
No polythene required yesterday (sorry Gina!). From an inauspicious start, it became a gorgeous day – the first that's felt anything like Spring proper.
So I got the wretched spuds planted and did some weeding. It's so long since I did any sustained digging and bending that I was soon sweating like a rapist.
And bafflingly, I got shit all over my face. This perplexed the wife: "Why are you planting potatoes with your head?"
Right, that's it. Enough's enough. The allotment's getting these bloody maincrop spuds TODAY.
They should have been planted a week ago. But of course that was impossible.
*Insert weather rant here*
So I'm planting them today – come rain, shine, snow or an ice storm from Hell itself. Even if I have to dress up in polythene like the farmer in Withnail.
My Duke of York first earlies have been chitting for a month. The sprouting stems look so freaky; purple, misshapen and macabre. I got a bit carried away with the computer and did some funky arty ones:
These are going in the ground this weekend – weather permitting. I'll be earthing them up by mid April – weather permitting. And I should get edible spuds in late May – weather per... ah, sod it. You get the picture.
Time to get this allotment blog back on track. Enough buggering around. Let's grow vegetables.
I've been dead productive this morning. Got the potatoes out to chit and sowed a tray of celeriac. This isn't as daft as it sounds; celeriac needs a long growing season, and the sooner you start, the bigger they get.
These should germinate in about 10 days. I'll transplant them to individual pots in late Feb. Then it's a small matter of keeping them thoroughly watered until October.
Which won't be a problem if 2008 is anything like 2007.
Midwinter storage check: To my surprise, the blighty potatoes haven't rotted in store. Sure, they're sprouting a bit. But that's normal, and no big deal.
A word on storing potatoes. They must be stored in the dark, or they sprout within weeks.
And whatever you do, DON'T keep them in sub-zero temperatures. Like parsnips, their starch turns to sugar and you'll get a sweet taste – which isn't very nice. Too-cold storage also ruins their chipping quality.
Astoundingly, the mildewed onions have also done OK. I've had to chuck away a few, but that's a breathtaking result given their lousy condition at harvest.
Apparently the gods didn't entirely abandon me in 2007.
Here's next year's potato bed, cleared and manured. I'll dig it through in November when the soil's cooled a bit and the weeds stop growing.
I'm so paranoid about clubroot that I have a 5-year crop rotation: Potatoes; alliums and pulses; brassicas; roots; sweetcorn and cucurbits. The brassicas always follow the alliums and pulses, because pea and bean roots fix nitrogen in the soil. The root bed is never manured: parsnips and carrots fang on freshly manured ground.
What with the weather, the smell of manure and the shortening days, I'm getting a serious dose of seasonal melancholy. When the clocks go back in a fortnight I'll be totally gutted.
They look all right. But then, so did the handful I lifted three weeks ago... and one of them showed signs of blight 10 days later. So God knows if these Arran Victory spuds will store.
Drying in the sun
To improve the odds, I've done everything by the book. You cut off the haulms and wait three weeks before lifting the tubers. In theory, that should stop them being infected by blight spores lying on the soil surface.
If they're not infected already.
Next, you need to dry them thoroughly. And that means thoroughly. Spuds with damp skins rot in storage, blight or no blight.
Ready for storage
Harvest them on a dry, sunny day. Then leave them in the sunshine for a few hours, turning regularly. If you have heavy clay soil you'll need to scrub it off to dry the tubers properly.
That's the theory, anyway. Mine will probably still rot. In the meantime, I have to dig three more rows of Desirée.
Then visit my osteopath.
Forgive crap photos. I have strip lights in the kitchen and they give everything a ghastly green overtone.
Much though I don't want this blog to turn into 'What I Ate Last Night', I have to report on this meal with pride. This is corn fresh from the plot (and sweet as nectar), fennel braised in stock and butter, roast chicken and Vitelotte potato chips. Yum.
This is when growing vegetables comes into its own. No matter how excellent your local shop (if you've still got one, that is), you can't buy food as fresh and wonderful as this.
I have a dilemma. My maincrop spuds have got blight. They're not too bad... but they're not too good either. Bordeaux mixture has kept it at bay, more or less.
I dug these this morning, and they're bigger than I expected. Almost big enough to dig.
And yet... and yet... not quite. Put it this way: I'd like them just a little bit larger.
So here's the thing. Do I dig now and harvest what I've got safely? Or do I wait a bit and risk losing the whole crop to blight?
Er...
Well, well. Who'd-a-thunk it? The onions are perhaps not a total disaster.
Most are still alive, albeit severely mildewed. They're tiny, of course, but I'm just happy to get something from the crop.
Onions: last row standing
I've harvested most of them. If I dry them very, very thoroughly they may store... perhaps. I'm leaving one row in, just in case they grow a bit more. A man can dream.
My mood's also been lifted by my terrific potatoes; I've never had such wonderful First Earlies. They're enormous.
Even the first spots of blight on my maincrop aren't dampening my spirits today. I've sprayed with Bordeaux mixture and I reckon they may still be OK.
Early spuds and maincrop
It's not warm enough for blight to spread really fast.*
*Editor's note: Given the pestilential blight that is now predicted to destroy the UK's entire potato crop in 2007, these words perhaps betray a somewhat irrational frame of mind in the writer
It's midsummer – you can tell from the weather. So I thought I should post some 'state of the union' pictures of the allotment. Just about every inch is now planted up or sown:
There are some salads at the front, too, but they're still very small. This is the view further back:
Behind the asparagus are the peas and onions:
There's a row of celeriac behind the onions. Leeks will soon replace the First Early spuds. And my winter brassicas will go in the gap left by the onions. Which I'll probably have to harvest soon, because downy mildew is knackering them.
The glut would start any minute... if the sun came out. But I'm beginning to suspect – aren't you? – that we're in for a traditional, old fashioned British summer.
In other words, an utterly shit one.
Have to be honest. Can't remember if this is Desirée or Arran Victory. I'll only know which row is which when I dig them up.
Whatever. Pretty, though, aren't they? In the 16th century, many Europeans grew potatoes primarily for their flowers. Looking at a bunch of maincrop spuds in full bloom, you can see why.
This is my favourite time of year. Everything's growing like hell. There's life everywhere you look, rampant and irresistible.
And yet, there's a shadow – the longest day on June 21st. I dread it. Thereafter, the days shorten and I get progressively more gloomy. Of which, no doubt, more anon. For now, best not to think about it.
*shudders*
Yippee, they're here!
Digging the first new potatoes of the year is a thrilling moment. I get childishly excited. Even better is sinking your fangs into them, smeared in butter (the potatoes, not the diner).
Not that they're ready, strictly speaking. A tad on the small side, if I'm honest. But hey. I couldn't wait. I had to have them now.
Story of my life.
These are Orla potatoes. They're marketed as the most blight-resistant First Early, but I grow them because they're vigorous and delicious. Their texture is somewhere between waxy and floury, and they boil well. Red Duke of York taste great, too, but you have to dig them so young for boiling – they're too floury when they get bigger.
Although I planted them in February, the Earlies are slow this year. The April drought knackered them. This rain will help, but it will probably be mid June before I can harvest any. Last year I dug my first spuds in mid May.
So this year's whinges and grumbles continue. If it weren't for the rampant asparagus (which is now floating through my dreams nightly), I'd be seriously downcast. As it is, I'm too stuffed.
Here’s a botanical oddity: the Vitelotte potato, otherwise known by the very un-PC name ‘Négresse de Poitou’. If you know some French, you can read more about the Vitelotte here. It’s an ancient variety that was apparently the favourite potato of Alexandre Dumas… at least, so the French Potato Marketing Board would doubtless like us to believe.
Whatever some may say, this is not the same spud as the Salad Blue or Edzell Blue. I’ve eaten both, and Vitelotte is a distinct variety – and a better tasting one, IMHO. These are utterly delicious potatoes. They have a distinct, nutty flavour. They’re quite dry, so they chip and roast particularly well. I get a huge kick from serving purple chips to friends, and a second hit of pleasure when they praise the taste.
I get them from Tucker’s. Two drawbacks: they’re not cheap and you should harvest as late as you dare: the tubers seem to do all their growth in September. They’re not very big, but yield is good if you can force yourself to wait.
They do well in the sharply drained soil of my allotment. I planted them up on Sunday and I’m looking forward to seeing the haulms: they are a particularly attractive dark green with pure white flowers. Will post a picture eventually.
Well here it is. Doesn't look much at the moment, but it will grow. So far, all that's really growing is the garlic you see in the foreground. Here's a close-up:
It's doing pretty well, although I don't like the yellowing of the leaves.
I planted the maincrop potatoes today. It was sunny, but horribly windy. Am growing Arran Victory (fantastic chips) and Desirée. The latter is reliable in our soil, which is very dry. In summer, the watering is agony. All of us are at the allotment site every night for at least an hour. There's gravel about 18 inches below the top soil, and water seeps away in seconds. 
Tomorrow I'll sow the first carrots and beetroot. I'm using Amsterdam Forcing and Bolthardy, which should do fine as an early crop. Carrots are a bugger, aren't they? We have the wretched carrot fly on our site, so Enviromesh is a must. It works, but it's horribly fiddly. I tuck it into the earth along the rows, but some people sensibly use iron bars to hold it down. But that's another thing on the vast and growing To Do List, so I never get round to it.
Last, but certainly not least, I'm afraid I simply have to post a picture of my beloved cat Herbie. Apologies to ailurophobes, but he's going to get a few mentions in this blog so you'll have to get used to him.
