One of my favourite crops to grow on the allotment is the potato. They may not always look as blemish-free as shop-bought options, but to me they are perfect because I know exactly where they came from and how they were grown.
I’ve just harvested all of my potatoes from the plot and put them into storage for the months ahead. I love growing and eating them and here is how I get the most from my crop.
It's often said that if you’re short on space, growing potatoes isn't worth the effort because they’re so cheap to buy. I disagree – here is why growing your own is worth the space.
Potatoes form a significant part of my daily diet and by growing my own I know what exactly has gone into producing them. I can choose how I manage the soil and make sure there's minimal impact on the environment.
I've heard people say that the difference between shop-brought and home-grown potatoes isn't particularly noticeable, but I find the contrast remarkable. There’s something about the flavour of a freshly harvested potato that, to me, is incomparable a supermarket one.
Carbohydrates are our primary energy source and a good harvest keeps the kitchen stocked for months. While I haven't managed to grow enough potatoes to reach year-round self-sufficiency – relying on pasta or couscous for a short window in early summer – I always look forward to the first potato harvest of the year.
Potatoes are remarkably easy to grow, they're a relatively low-maintenance crop and can give you a generous harvest for comparatively little effort.
Staggering your planting across early and maincrop varieties ensures a continuous harvest throughout the season. Earlies are fast-growing and ideal for tender new potatoes, while maincrops take longer but offer higher yields and better storage qualities.
Rapid growers that yield tender tubers early in the season.
Top picks: ‘Lady Christl’ , ‘Vivaldi’
Ideal for filling the midsummer gap.
Top picks: ‘Charlotte’ , ‘ Jazzy’
Bulky tubers meant for harvesting in late summer or autumn and storing over winter.
Top picks: ‘Sarpo Blue Danube’ , ‘Picasso’ , ‘Caledonian Rose’
There are numerous ways to grow potatoes, my preferred method of growing if focusing on keeping things simple and minimising soil disturbance.
I often don’t chit my potatoes (placing seed potatoes in light to encourage shoots before planting). While can speed up early growth, a small flat offers limited space for laying out egg trays of tubers. Un-chitted tubers just as well without it, they just take a little longer to get going.
I lay the tubers out on the bed, spaced around 30–40cm apart (slightly wider for maincrops), and plant them roughly 20cm deep, with any shoots pointing upwards. I usually plant in mid-April, in the hope that the worst of the frosts have passed before the foliage appears. However, my allotment is in a slight frost pocket, and this year all the potato foliage was frosted. Thankfully, it grew back and didn’t seem to affect the final harvest.
I don’t earth up my potatoes as I prefer to keep soil disturbance to a minimum. This does mean accepting that a few potatoes near the surface may turn green, I discard any potatoes that have turned noticeably green, as the toxins can permeate the , so cutting away the green areas isn’t sufficient.
Weeding: I weed while the potato plants are small but once the foliage gets going it quickly forms a dense canopy of leaves that suppresses most weeds.
Watering: During this summer’s drought, I initially watered the potatoes once a week, but stopped when the hosepipe ban came into force. This meant they received no additional water for the last couple of months before harvest, yet they still produced a good crop.
When harvesting I gather all the foliage of one plant together, pull gently and use my hands and a hori hori knife to sift through the soil for any remaining tubers.
I won't get all the tubers, but this method is quick and keeps soil disturbance to a minimum. Even if I turned over the whole bed, I’d probably still miss some – every potato grower will be familiar with the ‘volunteer’ potatoes that appear the following year in last year’s potato patch.
Initially, I harvest potatoes as I need them for eating. Then, sometime in autumn, I harvest all the potatoes that are left, leave them on the surface to dry for a couple of hours and then put then into breathable hessian sacks.
I store the sacks somewhere cool, dark and dry, moving them indoors before the winter frosts arrive. Stored this way, they remain edible well into April or May – even if they look a little wrinkled or start producing small sprouts towards the end.
Potato blight is a common fungal disease favoured by warm, humid weather – this summer hasn't been an issue for me, but it has occured before and can be particularly troublesome in certain weather conditions.
Prevention: choice is an important part of managing the risk. First and second earlies are usually harvested before blight becomes a major problem. For maincrops, choose blight-resistant cultivars like the 'Sarpo' range.
Action: If you do see signs of blight, what you do next will depend on the stage of growth and the condition of the crop. It’s worth checking current RHS advice before deciding when to harvest or whether potatoes are suitable for storage.
I’m afraid I’m not particularly inventive when it comes to potatoes – I mostly just boil them! But when they’ve come straight from the allotment, I don’t think they need much doing to them. However, different potato cultivars behave differently in the kitchen – the amount of starch and moisture in a potato affects its texture, so some varieties are better suited to particular dishes than others.
The perfect boiled potato
When home-grown potatoes taste this good, keeping it simple is best!
If you want to try some more creative flavour combinations:
Pro tip: For extra flavour, lightly crush or smash boiled potatoes before tossing them with butter, oil or other dressings. The rough edges create more surface area for sauces, herbs and seasonings to cling to, so you get more flavour in every bite.
Next time, I’ll be looking at some of the sowing and planting I’ve been doing this autumn to keep the allotment productive through winter.
