First potatoes have been harvested ... the blight-resistant Orla, and a few Arran Victory that somehow got mixed in. They were eaten as spicy potato wedges with some homemade (not by me) genuine Cajun seasoning. Just cut up into slices, covered in olive oil and roasted on a baking tray with a sprinkling of Jamie's secret recipe, and served up nice and crispy.
The Orla were declared "delicious" by my in-house expert and have probably won a regular slot on our planting schedule now. The Pink Fir Apple aren't doing half as well as last year, probably due to the dry conditions, but they're a late crop anyway so maybe they'll benefit from a wet September. The key time to water potatoes to encourage the tubers to swell is when they're flowering, although that's proved very hard this summer with such high temperatures. One tip that definitely seemed to work this year was nicking the seed potato when planting with a knife. This speeds its decomposition once the plant has sprouted, which attracts fewer slugs to the other, developing tubers. I only found one half-rotted seed tuber this year, and the slug damage was considerably less - although that could have just as well been due to the dry conditions, I suppose.
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