Potato Day YAY

Today was Potato Day at my favorite organic centre in Rossinver, Leitrim, Ireland.
I didn't go there to learn anything new about potatoes coz I thought I knew it all but I DID learn something new so I will share it with you by the end of this blog.

I went to stock up on a few things I can only get there, like my handmade toothpaste, some seed potatoes and some tray compost for sowing which starts tomorrow!! I came away with all those things and more.

First the toothpaste was past it's sell by date and my friend pointed out to me that they have to give it to me for free, so I tried it and got it for free. It was a double pot too so 8.80 worth.

We went to look at the easy peasy potato planting method demonstrated by an Irish champion. Yes they have a championship at this stuff.

If you've never grown anything in your life and all you have is a boring lawn then this is for you.
First you cut your 'line' up into short strips.

That funny looking 'spade' is called a 'Loy' and has a very sharp end you use like a knife to cut the turf.

Then you slice about 6 inches of turf with the sharp end -
Then you flip it over.

The point of the championship is speed. This guy was fast. So then you throw ur seed potatoes, one into each section and just flip the turf back over it, wait a few weeks and viola you get a whole bag of potatoes for each one you planted.

Now although this looks easy it's probably not as easy as it looks especialy if you don't have a 'Loy' which I don't. They also cost over a 100 euro to buy. I have a long thin spade so will have a go with that and see how I get on before investing in one.

We also went along to an old friend's 'talk' about potatoes, history and breeding as Klaus always makes the most mundane subjects interesting. This is where I learned the something new I mentioned earlier.

Don't worry the room filled up a few minutes later.....

I'd always been a bit confused about seed potatoes and why we didn't use actual seeds because I knew they produce flowers so why not seeds. Well today I learned they do!

I'm also no fan of mono-cropping and prefer mixing things up. Klaus explained an experiment he performed on his own land. He planted (the usual way explained above) a mix of various different potatoes in a small field and let some go to seed and cross pollinate with each other. This is like all the different types having a massive mixed up orgy and producing lots of different variants/mongrels of the originals. You can even make a brand new potato but it is all pot luck. You never know what you'll get until you plant those seeds.

The problem with this method apparently, is the difficulty of getting the seeds out of the pods which he said are like tiny tomatoes (they are in the same family). I think I might know how to get round that. So I'm excited to try and have a go at this this year.

I have plenty of unusable-for-anything-else areas of couch grass. I ignored the bags of single types of seed potatoes and made my own selection of a complete mixed bag from their leftovers in the shed and I will try a couple of methods in mind for harvesting the seeds.

If I manage to make a super new tasty potato breed, you might see my Tracey potaoes in a shop near you some day in the future. Who needs a pretty rose named after them when you could be eating my Tracey chips.

Today was a big success. The weather was perfect, warm and sunny. I met old friends I hadn't seen in a while. Only one masked idiot in sight. A lovely homemade sheperdless pie and brownie (all vegan) and was even given a bag of leftover cupcakes to take home.

I'm not sure I managed to round up a team of big strong men to come and help put up my polytunnel yet but I did plant suggestions and will try some affirmations to get that task accomplished before the growing season starts in earnest.