Today is the turn of the second early potatoes, those of
you that regularly read my blog will know that my first earlies were a bit of a
disaster. You can read about it here…I didn’t hold much hope for the second early potatoes because of the poor showing of the first early potatoes. I did have the British Queen first early still to dig up as I left these a few more weeks in the hope of a bigger crop. And I also found a second container at the allotment with more Winston in so these may have a better crop also; I forgot I had 2 containers with them in! Bonus!! The second early potatoes are Dr Macintosh and Doon Pearl both old heritage varieties and I was particularly looking forward to trying the Dr Macintosh I just love the name from the first time I saw them on the website JBA I knew I had to grow them.
So first up was the British Queen, I was pleasantly surprised
with them, as I only had 5 tubes left after the sub-zero temperatures back in February
took half of them away. In total I had a
crop of 1lb 8oz enough for a few feedings for the family and all the tubes
were of a good size.
Next up was the second tub of Winston. The first tub back
in May was very poor with only a handful of potatoes but the second crop lifted
today was much better, infact some of the tubers were very large almost what
you would expect of main crop potatoes. Total weight was 2lb 7oz not to shabby
at all.
Then onto Doon Pearl, they produced some really nice sized
tubers and again I only had 5 tubers left after the February frosts got to them
they produced a crop of 1lb 10oz.Lastly was the Dr Macintosh the crop I held in high hopes “drum roll” they produced 2lb 15oz of potatoes I was very chuffed and they also produced the most consisted in size also.
So after I got them home and cleaned them up, I decided to cook a few of each off to see what ones tasted best.
When cooking freshly dug potatoes if quite important to
SLOWLY cook them bring them to the boil then finished them at a low simmer this
will stop them from falling apart,
Out of the 4 the best I feel was the Dr Macintosh they
were really fluffy inside and not to waxy and had a really earthy taste, I don’t
know why these are not a common potato? I would really recommend these to
anyone who fancies growing something different. Don’t forget to check out my Facebook page for more pictures and you can also follow me on twitter@plot58
posted on 08 April at 16:38
Many years ago, one of the old boys was reminiscing about potatoes he grew around the time or just after ww2. He said that in all his time allotment gardening, he had never had such a large crop of large potatoes. The variety he said was Dr Macintosh... but I have never been able to find them. I know that they were named after a gentleman who worked on developing potato varieties and that they are still used to develop new varieties. I would like to try them but I have no idea how to buy them.