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Bags of Potatoes
Richard Bell’s Wild West Yorkshire nature diary, Sunday, 6th September 2009
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I THOUGHT the paper carriers that they give you at the buffet on the train to London would be useful; Barbara has filled this one with 5½ lb of Kestrel second early potatoes, and in a couple of larger bags she weighed out another 9 lb of Kestrel and 9 lb of Desiree, a red.
She reckons that this afternoon we dug about 30 lbs of potatoes from the bed by the hedge, and we’ve still got a third or more of the bed to clear.
The potato bags on the patio weren’t nearly so productive, probably because we were inconsistent with the way we earthed them up and at times they missed out on watering. Potatoes in the ground that more or less look after themselves are best for us.
For storage potatoes need sacks of paper or hessian. They’d soon go bad in the moist atmosphere of a plastic sack. With nothing else available, these paper carriers should serve well. Provided we don’t trust the handles alone when picking them up.
Potatoes need to be kept in an airy, frost free place in the dark, so these should keep for a few months at the back of the garage.
Any that we damaged as we dug them out we’ve kept separate for immediate use.
Some of the kestrels have already gone into a shepherd’s pie (made with turkey mince). They work well as mashed potatoes, they’re white and fluffy and, unlike some varieties, they didn’t go watery.