Mixed verdicts on Sarpo Mira

Just as a follow up to the last blog there have been several members who have now harvested their blight free Sarpo Mira potatoes and cooked them with differing comments on their performance when cooked.

I was personally disappointed with the way they broke up when boiled and those that survived were not the tastiest potato I've ever had being waxy and floury. I will try chipping them next or at least my head cook will and I'll report again before recommending whether our tenants grow them or not. Others have reported to me that they are delighted with their results. I'm sure at the end of the day, it will be down to individual taste but it is so rewarding to have a type of maincrop potato that will go full term without getting the dreaded blight midway through its growing season.This has been so frustrating for the last 5 years at least and everyone in Cornwall has given up trying to grow tomatoes outside the greenhouse for the same length of time. It seems 'something' is missing when we can't grow our Moneymakers, Big boys and Pixies.

The runner beans and squash family came good at the very end of the season and saved all the crops from being a total failure which bemused the new folk to the site this year when they were told when starting that they would be taking so much home that they had grown themselves when in fact nothing did well until very late. I won't use that phrase when introducing new members again!

I don't overwinter many crops preferring to leave fallow after incorporating plenty of good, well rotted horse and calf dung of which we are about to take delivery of 11, 3 ton trailer loads for all of our members that ordered, but I do like putting in a couple of rows of the Japanese Senshyui Yellow type. If we have a normal winter without too many hard frosts they produce very large bulbs and can be harvested a month earlier next year than normal types. I had one good year and one bad in the last two and is pot luck but the loss is minimal on the pocket if they fail.

Right, back to planning our Christmas dinner and prizegiving evening for our members, early this year on 1st December mainly because of the good deal we have been offered by doing so and because our chair and her hubby who is our site 'steward' have decided to take themselves off for a cruise for the middle two weeks of the the month and we need them to come (to pay for the wine).