
So far the potato bed has remained largely untouched. I harvested some ‘Swift’ and ‘Pentland Javelin’, which were useless and disappointing respectively, and I then assumed that I was in for a repeat when it came to harvesting any of the others. I was wrong.
When harvesting one potato cultivar, which I’ve not grown before, I was quite shocked to see that plant after plant, it consistently produced fairly large tubers and en mass too. That potato was ‘Wilja’, a second-early, and I’ll definitely be growing it again. From a row six foot long I harvested 5kg of potatoes (11lbs in old money), which I thought was pretty good considering Garden Organic state the average yield of early potatoes to be 5.5kg/3 meter row.

I’m yet to dig up the remaining 7 rows of spuds, which consist largely of ‘Sarpo Mira’ and two other main crop cultivars, the names of which are written on their labels but not emblazoned in my memory. I can only hope that they produce as well as ‘Wilja’ has. Usually, I like to change the potatoes I grow from year to year but I think I may be growing this one again in the not to distant future.