No more cheap potatoes?

Lynsey

Aldi's 49p (750g) Super 6 new potatoes are Maris Peer.

Lynsey

thistledome

chesky wrote: »

Spudman - a bit of a niche question, whatever happened to Bartlett's Roosters? They seemed to erupt on us about five years ago and I bought them regularly at Sainsburys. They disappeared from there and I could only get them in Waitrose. Then, nothing. Nowhere. Haven't seen them for a couple of years. What happened?

I know your question was to Spudman, but this must be a local thing. Our shops have plentiful supplies of Roosters, so no shortage of them in W. Scotland. They are my favourites for mash, due to the flavour, but they cost so much money I don't buy them anymore.

Spudman, my grandmother used to grow her own potatoes by burying potato peelings. Would this work with something like Roosters? Buy a bag and then use the peel to grow your own? Or is that mad?

chesky

I don't do online shopping, so that's out for me. But I'm intrigued to learn that other Sainsburys do stock Roosters. I'll ask my local manager why we don't. Thanks all.

SailorSam

I've started getting tins of potatoes, Tesco basics new potatoes are only 16p at the moment.

A._Badger

thistledome wrote: »

Spudman, my grandmother used to grow her own potatoes by burying potato peelings. Would this work with something like Roosters? Buy a bag and then use the peel to grow your own? Or is that mad?

I'll give you a quick answer. Yes. You can do this but you run the risk of disease - particularly if you then go on to save potatoes for the following year's crop.

Better is to buy a bag of certified Rooster seed potatoes, which you can get at a garden centre and use those.

SpudMan

I'm suprised to hear about a lack of Rooster in stores. It is bigger then ever now and has built as a brand over the past few seasons. Upwards of 15,000 tons a year of it are grown now compared with 3-4000 tons 5 years ago. Bartlett's exclusively own the rights to all seed stocks for Rooster and as such I would be very suprised if you found any showing up in garden centre's etc. Really what you find in a garden centre wuld not be commercial varieties and quite frankly on the whole they are very poor. That was the reason for the varieties I suggested. Gardening sites etc will name no end of varieties that would potentially do well but none of them will have a high resistance to PCN and Virus YO, both of which would be rife in your garden or near grass. It just wouldn't be cost effective for a breeder to spend the thousands it costs to breed this into a variety only for it to sell in very small numbers.

Yes you can plant potato peel to grow potatoes but the peel must contain the eye. It would be more effective if you left the peel in sunlight and let it start to sprout first before planting. Planting peel wouldn't make it any more succeptable to disease than planting an actual tuber. What would make it more succeptable would be the fact that the tuber you peeled wasn't grown as a seed stock. There are several other issues involved here too. It'd be like a mother becoming pregnant but only giving 5% of her nutrients to her baby. If you look at a seed tuber as the season goes on it will be completely depleted. Your bit of peel would deplete many weeks sooner having passed on considerably less to it's babies.

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver

There is nothing like a bit of soil to improve the taste of potatoes, that's why I find Riverfords taste so nice because a little soil acts like a preservative and they last longer.

suki1964

At the end of the day the answer to the question is correct, cheap food is a thing of the past, along with cheap fuel

Prices will rise year on year as fuel and fertiliser prices rise

A._Badger

wouldbeqaulitymoneysaver wrote: »

There is nothing like a bit of soil to improve the taste of potatoes, that's why I find Riverfords taste so nice because a little soil acts like a preservative and they last longer.

A coating of soil helps prevent potatoes from going green (it's a shame people are so lazy and now demand potatoes pre-washed potatoes).

A._Badger

SpudMan wrote: »

I'm suprised to hear about a lack of Rooster in stores. It is bigger then ever now and has built as a brand over the past few seasons. Upwards of 15,000 tons a year of it are grown now compared with 3-4000 tons 5 years ago. Bartlett's exclusively own the rights to all seed stocks for Rooster and as such I would be very suprised if you found any showing up in garden centre's etc. .

Then be prepared to be very surprised. What used to be known as the Wyevale chain (Britain's largest, now usually branded just as The Garden Centre) is selling not just Rooster seed potatoes, but other Bartlett varieties, too.

JBA, one of the most major seed potato suppliers lists them,. too.

http://www.jbaseedpotatoes.co.uk/rooster-albert-bartlett-seed-potatoes

Your comments about domestic varieties is misguided, at best. I suggest readers interested in growing potatoes at home refer to the RHS website, a good gardening book (The Potato Book by Alan Romans is highly regarded), or a reliable web-based gardening group (including MSE's own).such as http://growingpotatoes.co.uk/ or http://www.allotment.org.uk/