digging up treasure [aka potatoes]

If you grow your own spuds you’ll know exactly what I mean when I say lifting potatoes is like finding treasure.  A satisfied sigh escapes my lips thinking back to our anniversary weekend when we unearthed our loot:  a few kilos of Valor potatoes and half a pillow case full of Robinta potatoes for storing while we eat the rest of the Nicola potatoes.

Fortunately George’s only casualty was one Nicola potato despite an over zealous namesake risking prongs in the head and speared fingers in her eagerness to retrieve her treasure! 

Last years fabulous red skinned Robinta potatoes kept us in delicious crispy jacket potatoes until December.  They cope well with drought conditions so I had high hopes of enormous jackets when planting them during the early summer heatwave.  They don’t mind the rain either, they’re Scottish seed potatoes so they have to not mind it, so they really are a win:win choice for the fickle British climate.  This years Robinta crop has been smaller in quantity and tuber size due to cutting the tops back sooner than I would have liked to prevent the spread of blight (they’re resistant to disease but I wasn’t going to take any chances after losing all my tomatoes).  It worked and we have no complaints – 6 small spuds take half as long to bake and you get more lip licking crispy skin per serving. 

If we can resist eating them all I’d like to have a go at saving some of the smaller Robinta tubers for next year’s sowing.  Henri‘s been recycling seeds from all his plants for years and hasn’t had any of the problems we get cautioned about.