Growing potatoes

"Tatties for Tea" is a fab little book, given to me by a colleague in west Scotland. It gives you some idea about which ones grow well in Scotland but also some lovely recipes. We get ours from Ireland, no idea of the variety - possibly Kerr's Pinks but they are lovely, really traditional proper taste (we just go and dig them out from the farm). Our hand luggage is hilarious, no clothes, just spuds I can only imagine what it looks like on the x-ray thingy! Only drawback is they are prone to blight which is a big issue where I am in the NE of England so do think about that too.


The Tatties book suggests Lady Christl, Salad Blue, Highland Burgandy and Arran Pilot of you can't get hold of the others. Also Dunluce. You are in the best place for seed potatoes, many of the Scottish varieties are lovely.

My selection is Epicure, Duke of York, Sharpes Express, Setanta and also Sarpo Mira which is grown for blight resistant crops to store for winter, but all of the other varieties taste better imo.
Have grown most of these for forty years, except for Sarpo Mira which I have only grown for the last five.

Gers, you are correct that Epicure was one of the earlies grown for the Ayrshire potatoes trade, along with Home Guard, Duke of York or Red Duke. These came from the south Ayrshire/Girven coast area, which is probably a bit warmer than mid-Argyll. Other favourites of that era were the Arran varieties (Arran Banner perhaps being the best known, but also A.comet, A.pilot, A.Victory). For later cropping varieties, that your mum will remember, I would suggest Kerr's Pink, King Edward or even Golden Wonder. These need special care in the cooking, though!

British Queen and Catriona also have Scottish ancestry albeit bred for the Lincolnshire trade and would meet the old-fashioned taste for a floury but tasty potato.

Other old standards include Edzel Blue, Dunbar Standard or the Pentland series. Pentland Dell is probably the most floury, with Crown, Ivory, Javelin being much firmer.

If, in part, you want something that adds colour to the garden, then a profusely flowering variety like Maris Peer or (my favourite) Pentland Marble might be worth trying, if you can find them.