Garden: What? No Potatoes?

So, how many varieties of potatoes are you growing this year?

This seemed to be the first question out of the mouths of many gardeners back in the UK when the conversation turned to veg for the plot.  And yes we would have a few Charlotte or Pink Fir Apple growing unsuccessfully in bags near the back door.  But to be honest, we didn't eat that many spuds - roasties on a Sunday if we had a joint or sauteed on a Friday if we had fish and the occasional mash with bangers - so growing them wasn't really up there, especially with limited time and space.

When we moved to the Pyrenees we certainly had the time and the space, if not the ideal growing conditions (soil, for example!) so one bed was dedicated to a crop of Charlotte, a variety chosen on the grounds that it was all that was left at the local brico shop.  They did well, although the tubers did suffer from slug and wireworm damage, but we were still eating them at Christmas.  Hardly surprising really, given that we couldn't afford the Sunday joint, and as broadly a salad spud they didn't mash, roast or saute terribly well, so were often overlooked in favour of spaghetti or bread, cheap sources of carbo.  They sprouted well in the cupboard.

So the next year, somehow still full of enthusiasm, I grew half a dozen varieties, knobbly ones, flowery and waxy and even alarmingly blue ones.  The slugs loved them, they got blight and the harvest was terrible.  I fed the blue ones to a friend's child which, rather than amusing and entertaining her, made her cry.

After a season of slugged King Edwards, just so we could have delicious roast potatoes with our goose at Christmas and pathetic pink fir apple last year I have called a halt.  We can buy cheap everyday spuds and five kilos will easily last a month or more, and if we want something a bit special, well the market and supermarkets all have a range of seasonal and local spuds at not too silly prices.

So in 2015 there will be no potatoes growing in my plot (apart from the inevitable volunteers), although I think I might just plant a single one from the cupboard as they are such a good herald of the arrival of blight: a nice cheap early warning system for when it is time to get the blue spray out.

And in the space given over to potatoes?  I have my new shiny strawberry patch, so maybe in four years time when the stawbs are exhausted, I'll have another play with the humble spud.