Soilman

I just liked this picture. It has absolutely no advisory merit whatsoever, but it came out nicely (by mistake, naturally).

So there.

Ever seen a properly frosted potato haulm? You have now.

This is the wreckage of last night’s sub-zero attack, which has blackened and destroyed every bit of potato leaf above ground – on our whole allotment site. Nobody’s escaped.

Now normally I wouldn’t be too worried. We’ve had late Spring frosts before, and the potatoes – albeit damaged – have always shrugged it off.

This year, though, I confess I AM worried – very worried. The potatoes had been fighting to put on any growth in the cold weather, and this is the worst frost damage I’ve ever seen. If they do manage to regrow, I’m assuming the plants – and therefore the tubers – will struggle to reach a decent size.

And another thing, now guaranteed: we’re going to be digging the first new potatoes MUCH later than usual.

This year is just weird. Definitely the coldest, bleakest growing season I’ve ever known.

I’ve waited for this for what feels like a year. I’ve been desperate to get the bloody potatoes in, but Life has conspired against me for weeks.

It was a lovely afternoon, but Nature is slow to bestir Herself this year. I saw my first daffodil on Wednesday (a pretty mangy specimen), but of Spring there is still barely a sign. No Forsythia, no Camellias, nothing. Have you seen any?

Folks keep saying a hot summer follows a cold winter. But the summer of 1963, following the ‘Great Freeze’ of 62/63, was apparently unremarkable… so I’m not holding my breath. This Global Warming thingamajig ain’t all it’s cracked up to be – in the UK, at any rate.

Right, it’s all change. No more non-gardening, non-blogging and non-doing.

This weekend, a multitude of jobs WILL get done:

• Planting raspberries (maybe even staking them and rigging wiring for support)
• Planting First Early potatoes
• Planting onion sets
• Digging up remaining Jerusalem artichokes and replanting a new row
• Digging over roots bed
• Weeding
• Hoeing
• Saving the planet and getting the girl

All in a day’s work for New Soilman (it’s like New Labour: full of promises and relaunches, but always the same old bollocks).

Spring is within view, at last; when the seed potato order arrives, it’s not far off.

I’m being very unadventurous: Desiree, Orla, Kerr’s Pink. The only slightly unusual one is Ratte, a terrific French second early/early maincrop that I’ve become fond of. Utterly delicious salad potato.

Who knows? I may even go to the allotment at some point. After, er, a month’s absence.

I found this enormous Desirée potato this morning. By mistake: left it in the ground when I was digging the row last week.

Question: How the bloody hell could I miss something this big?

Another question: Can you top it with something bigger?

Email me any pics of huge potatoes (or comically misshapen ones) and I’ll post up the entries for laughs.

Harvested the last of the spuds today. Very disappointing; small tubers and not many of them. Two 15ft rows filled only half a sack. Normally I get a sackful and a bit.

I’m assuming it was the hot, dry June. Great for sweetcorn, but not ideal for potatoes, which do a lot of their top growth in June. Even with that wet July, the haulms didn’t grow as big as usual.

Hey ho. Forced optimism is not – as you may already know – my bag. But the great thing about gardening is that there’s always next year.

PS OMG… things could be worse

At this time of year, I’d normally be ranting about courgettes: how many I’ve got, how quickly they turn into marrows, how I can’t get rid of them etc etc.

(See? I almost went off on one there).

But I’m not going to inflict that upon you (not today, anyway). Instead, I want to sing the praises of the Ratte potato.

Granted, it’s French. But that’s a small black mark against a spud that is truly excellent in every other way. Its yield is prodigious (albeit with small-ish tubers in a dry Spring), it tolerates a bit of blight, tastes absolutely delicious and is very versatile in cookery. As a salad potato, it beats Charlotte hands down.

In short, Ratte gets the Soilman Mark of Full Approval. For what that’s worth.

If you’re looking to try a new early (they grow fine as second earlies – ready in mid to late June), you could do worse than this one.

Thick and fast now, thick and fast. It’s all going crazy.

We have Ratte potatoes, Orla potatoes, All-the-year-round cauliflowers, Early Nantes carrots, Bolthardy beetroot and Russian courgette/squash hybrids (don’t know what these are called in English, but they’re known as ‘Kobachok’ in Russian).

The missus and I are stuffed to the gills with veg every night.

Well, they’ve arrived. Could be a tad bigger, if I were being picky, but I suppose it’s only early June.

We had the first spuds on Sunday, and in truth I need to wait a little longer. One-plant-per-diner isn’t fabulously economical.

Having said that, small new potatoes are lip-smackingly delicious when fresh. I could scoff them until I’m sick. And beyond, probably.