Thursday 9 June 2011

She's beaten me to it!

Lara (with a bit of help from her Mum, I think), harvested her first home-grown new potatoes of the year on Sunday. No wonder she is looking so smug!


Lara's potatoes were planted on 6th March, three weeks before mine, so they are ready earlier too. As you can see, there are not many potatoes in this batch, and they are not very big, but I'm sure that they will make up for this by being extra delicious. And anyway, you can see how proud of them she is!

My potatoes are going to stay in the ground for another couple of weeks, by which time I hope the haulm (foliage) will have begun to die back. At present is is still a luxuriant green - and very straggly.


Home-grown new potatoes fresh from the ground must count as one of the best culinary delights in the world! I like them simply boiled (preferably within a few minutes of harvesting) and then sprinkled with salt, pepper and butter (LOTS of butter...). They are also delicious in what we loosely call “Pasta à la Genovese”, which to us is pasta, new potatoes, and French beans, all smothered in a gooey pesto sauce made from fresh basil, pine-nuts, oil and parmesan cheese.

My final photo for this post has nothing to do with potatoes. It's simply a picture of a nice salad I made a couple of days ago: baby leaves of red lettuce (Romana Rossa), Land Cress and Rocket. I thought it provided a fabulous combination of colours and flavours...

13 comments:

  1. Oh thank you for this timeline :)

    Mine first batch went in on the 5th of April, so I might wait another month. I have to confess to having had a little dig around in there though, and yes, treasure is to be found!

    Potatoes are very exciting. Now that's something that I'd like to grow all year round.

    Your salad greens look simply fabulous. You really are the salad king :)

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  2. So many ways to have potatoes. But when they are fresh from the garden, anyway is delicious.
    I had some bad luck with my potatoes. I under watered my young plants and with the temperature recently touching 40 deg C (104 deg F), they didn't survive.

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  3. Yum your potatoes with beans and pesto sounds great.

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  4. Lara having a great time and she will like those yummy fresh potatoes. Ohhh..you will be harvesting many fresh potatoes from those healthy plants. Is it still possible to plant some more potatoes there before the weather gets too cold for them?Maybe you can harvest some baby potatoes again before winter.

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  5. Diana; I do still have 5 potato tubers (Charlotte) that I haven't planted. When the first of the early batch are harvested, I will plant those five and see if I can get an Autumn crop.

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  6. What an achievement for little Lara! And to start so young. My boys have, unfortunately, not shown any interest in gardening whatsoever! Your potato dish sounds absolutely tempting! As for the salad, what a great combination of colours!

    Thanks for stopping by my blog!:) I'd love to be here again.

    Kanak

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  7. Hi Kanak; Thanks for your visit. I know that you are very interested in wildlife, but are you a keen gardener, or a keen cook by any chance? I'd love to learn more about what people in your part of the world grow and cook.

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  8. Lara looks very pleased with her harvest, and rightly so! Your plants are looking very healthy Mark, you are sure to get some tasty potatoes from them. I've never thought of putting them with pasta, sounds good, especially with the pesto.

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  9. We've started harvesting our potato bags planted the first week in April and grown in the greenhouse until they were dragged out last week. Not a bad haul either but I guess variety can make a difference too our potato bags are Maris Bard and Winston

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  10. Ahhh, what a cheeky face, she's a cutie. Our potatoes were planted quite late so I'm holding out for a while yet, though the foliage looks lovely and healthy, I hope what's happening underground is doing just as well.

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  11. What a beautiful little girl such a happy care free smile.
    We have only just put our potatoes in over here can't beat the flavor of a fresh tato.

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  12. Lara is precious! How late can one put in potatoes and still get a harvest?

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  13. David, these days you can get potatoes specially bred for late planting. I think you plant them about now, possibly a bit later. I'm going to plant a few as soon as I harvest the first of the earlies (thus freeing-up some pots!)

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