This experiment is very much a real time one with none of the clear vision of hindsight. I know from the bloggers' meet in Oxford that other growers including Mustard Plaster are trying to grow potatoes from true seed.
It was new to me as I'd always grown potatoes from seed potato tubers, bought in each year as I'd never been able to store my tubers in good condition for planting the following season. And we'd always been told that we couldn't guarantee that our tubers were disease free.
Anyway, introduced to the idea at the bloggers' meet, I found some interesting and informative sites which got me going on this experiment - have a look at the International Potato Centre and this post by Daughter of the Soil .
I picked these potato berries from my crop of Cara (this year there were loads of berries on my maincrop but none on the Charlotte).
The berries were ripe, soft and sweet smelling, like the ripest bunch of grapes you've ever come across - a potential danger if you have children or pets around as the berry is packed with poisonous glycoalkaloids, 10-20 times that contained in tubers that have turned green. Don't eat them!
After scraping out the seeds I'm treating them as I would tomato seeds and have them in a jar of water to ferment for a few days. I don't know if I need to do this but it should remove any seal around the seeds that could inhibit germination. Then I'll dry them on paper and store for the winter.
About 8 weeks before the last frost I'll sow them indoors as I would tomatoes and eventually (assuming I have germination and no damping off) transplant them to the potato beds and wait and see what tubers I get. I don't think I'll get an exact replica of the parent potato, Cara, and it's likely there will be unexpected variations in tuber size, colour, taste, disease resistence etc. I suppose if some plants do better in my garden than others then I could develop stock from these - really back garden plant breeding.
Many thanks to Patrick and Steph for organising the 2008 Food and Growers blog meet at Oxford's Botanic Garden last Saturday.
The weather was glorious and the company excellent. The food was good (thanks Cat for the apple pie)and the presentations from Ben of Real Seeds, Patrick and Simon were entertaining and informative.
There was talk about future projects (growing garlic and potatoes from true seed has me interested) and lots of laughs made for a great day. And there was a busy seed swap where I bagged some Magnum Bonum pea ('sublime flavour') and Wintergreen beet which promises to be a good keeper.
Mark your diaries for next year.
Gypsy Red has a white outer wrapper and inner cloves with a light purple marking and a thin pale brown over skin.
Each bulb had 8 - 10 cloves and from what I'd read elsewhere I expected this garlic to be a firey hot number.
Not so with our crop which was mild and fragrant. Which all goes to show that garlic tastings are pretty subjective affairs.
I've enjoyed growing all the different varieties this season and I know that I'll grow some of the same varieties again next year but I'm not sure which ones yet.
Safe to say though I'll definitely grow some hardnecks to enjoy the first scapes of the year. Eating these really was a revalation but it's not for the faint hearted. I've got six cubes of scape pesto left in the freezer so maybe it's time to get some out and re-live the intense garlicky taste scape pesto brings to pasta.
Vekak Czech garlic on the left is very pungent on the nose but surprisingly mild tasting when cooked. Skin colour is striking - an intense purple that goes to the outer wrapper.
The Colorado Black on the right is cased in a white wrapper which when divided yields around 9 cloves with a deep, dark purple skin which may explain the black in the name. Stronger tasting than Vekak Czech, it's not so pungent when crushed.
Like any garlic, I suppose, this one gets you a seat in the library on your own if you eat enough.
It's a hardneck type on the smallish side but still producing 10 plump cloves that deliver a strong taste. Combined with olive oil and pimenton it did a good job of marinating chicken breasts.
Prim is a softneck garlic variety and modest in size, at least from my growing this season, disappointing really and fiddly to use. Under the white wrapper are pinkish cloves. It promises to be a long keeper. I'm finding as I work through the varieties that clove size and keeping qualities will probably decide what I grow on next year. Though by November when I start to plant again the true picture on storage will not be fully known. Plenty of punch (all garlic will have this!) with a parsley and garlic pesto to go with squid and pasta.
The outer wrapper of this softneck variety is an off white with flashes of red on the inner cloves.
It reached a decent size with 10 good size cloves and several smaller inner cloves.
I used this variety in a pea mash and one clove mildly flavoured the dish.
The first heirloom tomato (Mortgage Lifter) was picked on Saturday. Pinkish with rounded shoulders and firm meaty flesh, it's the first beefsteak I've grown.
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