Larger potatoes can be cut as long as there are at least 3 eyes on each cut piece. Salaman, The history and Social Influence of the Potato (Cambridge 1949, revised 1985). which aims to capture the individual histories of Irish Fine Edwardian in landmark Limerick terrace for €850k, I got rid of 95% of my stuff, almost everything I’ve ever owned. The Potato Association of America Mailing Address: 37637 Five Mile Road, #399 Livonia, MI 48154 Phone: (734) 239-8022 Fax: (734) 677-2407 E-mail: paaoffice@potatoassociation.org This variety has a white skin and flesh and a notably floury tecture. After all, conventional gardening wisdom dictates that shoots be no longer than an inch. All figures relate to production by commercial potato growers, defined as those growing 0.8 hectares (2 acres) or more of potatoes. Take5: From period house in Dublin to stone house in France with pool and disco, For the best site experience please enable JavaScript in your browser settings. The Ralegh legend although dating to Southwell in 1693, was made popular by Dr Wright of Edinburgh, who credits Ralegh with the introduction in a letter he wrote to the English Board of Agriculture in 1795. Hostilities with Spain had broken out once more, and he was ordered to cause as much damage as possible to the Spanish overseas empire. Following is a list of first early potato varieties available from the featured seed merchants on this website (Click Links For Details): Accent – Great resistance to garden pests. Most varieties hold the RHS Award of Garden Merit (AGM). Typically you will receive 6-10 potatoes per kg for our Early Season Varieties. It is recorded in The World Encompassed (1628), that Drake obtained potatoes by barter from the Indians of the Islands of Mocha, off the coast of Chile in November 1578: ‘we being on land, the people came down to us to the water side with shew of great curtesie, bringing to us potatos, rootes and two very fat sheepe’. Organic gardener Nicky Kyle does, however, which is why mid-January finds her sitting toasty-warm at her kitchen table, a bin-load of potting compost to one side and a neat stack of 2-litre plastic pots to the other, while the smell of freshly-baked bread (I kid you not) wafts through the air from the nearby Aga. First early or ‘new’ potatoes are so-called because they are the earliest to crop, in June. They could only tuberise in the shorter days of the European autumn, and grow in milder regions of Ireland, Spain, Italy, etc.. We know this from the evidence provided by contemporary botanists. And then wait. One example of a tuber ideally suited for early season planting is the Irish Cobbler, an irregularly shaped variety with light brown skin. Ralegh gave up his patent in March 1590, having never set foot in Virginia. This would suggest a point of origin in Spain itself, or that a Spaniard was responsible for introducing the potato to Ireland. Accord – An attractive first early with tasty creamy-white tubers. The president of the Royal Society, Sir Robert Southwell (1635-1702) was recorded in the minutes of a meeting of 13 December, 1693 as stating that his grandfather had ‘brought potatoes into Ireland who had them from Sir Walter Rawleigh after his return from Virginia’. Although wild potatoes are found as far north as Nebraska in North America, no species was cultivated outside South America at the time the Spanish arrived in the New World. in other words, it’s January, the month when the urban farmer is forced to spend so much time indoors that he or she might as well live in a burrow. It also contained a large amount of folklore. The sweet potato (ipomoea batatas) which is unrelated to the potato, grew in lowland areas all around the Caribbean, at the time of the Spanish conquests. Having completed his renowned second circumnavigation of the globe in November 1580, he was honoured by a visit from Queen Elizabeth I, who dined with him on board his ship, the Golden Hind (formerly the Pelican), which was lying at Deptford in the Thames estuary, but there is no record of potatoes appearing on the menu. But they don’t have the pleasure of owning their own polytunnel like some other lucky GYOers do. Only save from the best, most healthy looking plants, grown outdoors the previous year from certified seed potatoes , and make sure there’s no blight, scabs, bruises or dark patches on the tubers. The introduction of the tuber as a curiosity from Spain through Waterford, seems highly plausible. Little did they realise that, once introduced into Europe, the potato would begin more than four centuries of conquest. As follows is an approximate breakdown of the Irish potato market by variety: Finally, don’t waste your time searching for the Mayan Gold potato, the one that Nicky says is a potato to die for. If Ralegh was in a position to distribute potatoes at an early date, he must surely have got these potatoes from England, since he was never in Virginia and as already mentioned, Solanum tuberosum is not native to Virginia. Sir Walter Ralegh, Sir Francis Drake and John Hawkins, have all been credited with introducing the potato into Europe. Burton in the 1980s, contrary to Salaman, that potatoes given only the slightest of care will sprout little tubers and survive in the most inhospitable of environments. He tried to visit Virginia on his return from his disastrous venture in Guyana in 1595, but failed. To help you decide, we grew and taste-tested 12 varieties. King Henry VIII, son-in-law of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain, was particularly fond of them believing they possessed aphrodisiac qualities, which could provide him with that all-elusive heir. This is a list of potato varieties or cultivars.Potato cultivars can have a range … Accord Seed Potatoes From: £5.99 A good yielding first early variety of uniform, oval, white fleshed tubers. Other gardeners prefer the white, round 'Irish Cobbler' for an early potato, but it produces small tubers. The first European potatoes were it seems antigena from Colombia (for most of Europe at least). However, there is not a shred of evidence to support such an assumption. The story of Clontarf, from battleground to garden suburb, Darkest Dublin: The story of the Church Street disaster and a pictorial account of the slums of Dublin in 1913. Delicious flavour as a salad crop, but can be grown on to produce baking sized potatoes. Drake was not the only Englishman to come into contact with the potato at an early date. It is rather unlikely that Drake seized potatoes from the Spanish when there was more valuable cargo to be had, but the period after his return from South America in the autumn of 1573 is an obscure one in his life. Davidson, ‘The History of the potato and its progress in Ireland’ in Journal of the Department of Agriculture, XXXIII, no.1 (1937). Indeed, the effect of his triumph in the West Indies was almost cataclysmic. The OPW’s Victorian kitchen garden is in the grounds of the Phoenix Park Visitor Centre, beside the Phoenix Park Café and Ashtown Castle. Onions along with shallots, leeks, chives and garlic, belong to the Allium family, which including wild varieties has some 325 members. the potato and the Great Irish Famine (Dublin 1994). Early varieties are recommended for beginners as you will avoid the troublesome potato blight season. It has since been proven by W.G. Clusius visited Drake in 1581 and published articles the following year on some of Drake’s plants, but again there is no mention of the potato. . On his return to England in 1588, Harriot published A Briefe and True Report of the New Found Land of Virginia. Swift Another Very Fast Maturing First Early, About 12 To 14 Weeks.high Yields Of Good Flavoured, Uniform, Firm Fleshed Tubers. IT’S COLD, it’s dark, it’s wet, it’s windy . R.N. Read the instructions on when to plant your seed potatoes as it will differ depending on whether you have first earlies, second earlies or maincrop varieties. So, when it comes to recommending the best varieties to grow in polytunnels, she speaks from long experience. Spanish credit, both moral and material, almost foundered under the losses. Indeed, the early history of the potato is obscured by often contradictory stories, many of which can be relegated to the sphere of romance. “It’s vital that you don’t disturb the rootball at this stage,” she warns, “as otherwise it’ll set them back at least a few weeks”. Ironically, given Ralegh’s association with the potato down through the centuries, it was to Drake and not to him that a monument was dedicated in Offenburg, Germany, with the inscription: ‘Sir Francis Drake, introducer of the potato into Europe, in the year of our Lord 1580’. The English herbalist John Gerard (1545-1612), was indebted to Clusius for information regarding the potato. As to Ralegh’s voyages, only one touched the coast of Ireland on the return journey, and that at Smerwick, County Kerry, with the crew half-starved. Yet another reason, you might think, for traditionalists to wince. He mentions a stringy tuberous plant called the ‘openawk’, with which the potato has often been confused right up until the nineteenth century, hence the association of the potato with both Virginia and Ralegh. It is not until the early 1590s that we hear of the potato in England. He refers to the Indian name of the potato, which he incorrectly spelt ‘papus’. "I'd say Lady Christl, without a doubt," she says. " Bred in Northern Ireland it is an all-purpose potato with firm flesh and a good flavour. The Irish Potato Famine is a harrowing time in history and some of you may not want to know more about Irish potato information, but it is important to learn about the history of Irish potatoes … Given the fact that the Spanish were the first Europeans to encounter the potato in the New World, and the first to cultivate it on the European mainland, it should come as no surprise if the Spanish were responsible for bringing the first tubers to our shores. traditionalist and something of a potatophile, with a near-boffinish knowledge of the thousands of different varieties available. A spot in Cork harbour between Carrigaline and Crosshaven, where he is reputed to have landed is still known as Drake’s Pool. In 1585 Drake had been in command of twenty-five ships. Potatoes may well have formed part of the valuable haul taken from Cartagena itself or from the cargoes of plundered ships. Rather than looking to England and her naval heroes, we should instead look to Spain. Despite the important role the potato was later to play in Irish history, we still don’t know how the potato reached our shores. The only problem with any of these is in getting the seed potatoes early enough to give them time to chit, so I save some of my own each year.”, But isn’t saving your own seed potatoes a Very Bad Idea, because of the risk that the stored tubers might carry disease? Wash them, dry them and then store them carefully, loosely covered and in the coolest place you can find – it must be frost-free, though – where the mice can’t get at them. Plant a few marigolds, wallflowers or Limnanthes douglasii (the poached egg plant) nearby to distract early aphids. Once the shoots have nudged their way up above the compost, they’ll immediately be put (but not planted) out in the polytunnel, where they’ll be protected from any harsh night-time frosts with a double-layer of fleece (she takes this off during the daytime). Young people and activism: ‘You can’t stand by and hope everything’s going to be okay’, Ireland’s mental health pandemic: From crisis to emergency, Frequently asked questions about your digital subscription, Specially selected and available only to our subscribers, Exclusive offers, discounts and invitations, Explore the features of your subscription, Carefully curated selections of Irish Times writing, Sign up to get the stories you want delivered to your inbox, An exact digital replica of the printed paper. First early seed potatoes need to be planted at a depth of 10cm with at least 30cm between each potato. It therefore proved to be rare and expensive in the rest of Europe. Of the second-, earlies, I’d recommend Sharpes Express, Roseval, and then Mayan Gold, which is a potato to die for. Growing in Virginia 1590, but in its original habitat in the mid-1500s, been. And disease resistance and watering – “ but don ’ t have the of! 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