Potato Selection 2014

A real odd ball fact about me is I don't enjoy eating potato but I do get way too over excited about growing them. Seriously, I am not a chip/mash/roastie or baked potato girl though I do eat them and heck I live in N. Ireland so it would be difficult not too. It's not that I have anything against them, they simply make me feel  as though I have been run over by the 'sleepy, bloaty' train.

Some of last year's earlies

But as I say, I do get inordinately excited about growing these starchy sleepy balls of yum. I think, no I know, it has to do with my memory of Papa out in his back garden when I was little and thinking him utterly magical when he lifted fresh spuds from the ground for dinner. I don't know, maybe everyone has someone from their past that just seems to have been a gentle giant, a can-do genius, an inspiration to your childish eyes and that has never changed.

Nana, Papa and Me

Somehow being a part of that magic back then still echoes within me each season when we pick our spuds, chit them, plant them, watch them grow and then dig up that hidden treasure for ourselves. I have been waiting for the weekend when we would go to get our seed potatoes since Christmas and last weekend (Sunday) was that day. Sadly I was extremely poorly and ended up only getting as far as the car park of the nursery and sat there in the midst of the most earth shattering panic attack of many years; I was about 300 meters away from the joy of picking our seeds, but a million light years away from my own sense of self.

So Andrew, he is wise and we trust him, picked the 2 types for 2014.
** First earlies Pentland Javelin

The British Potato Variety Database

** Saxon for our second earlies (these are new to us)

The British Potato Variety Database

So expect photos of chitted spuds and spuds being planted and what not - lets all share the magic of the humble potato, together :)

Hugs