Heatwaves and splash spuds

I took the opportunity the weekend before last to knock off some peaks in the Lake District, staying in the beautiful Buttermere valley. 26 miles and 6 mountains later my aching limbs are still suffering over a week later, but man I sure do look sexy on a mountaintop!

Whilst on top of a mountain called High Sile I took the opportunity to have a much needed bladder emptying session on the Ennerdale side of the mountain knowing that Gareth Cameron lives further down the valley. Gareth is 50% of a showing Cumbrian duo otherwise known as Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood. I reckon my toxic weewee should have reached his allotment by now so it should already have started to kill all his veg meaning I have one less opponent to worry about come show time. Very much looking forward to my next walking holiday to the Campsie Fells, unfortunate name for surely no proper men live below such a gay sounding range of hills?

In the heatwave that large swathes of the country were experiencing recently I had to make sure my spuds in the bags were getting plenty of water. The haulms are currently approaching 12” high which is approximately the time when the tubers are forming (tuber initiation) and water is critical at this time if you want to avoid scab. I only grow a single variety these days, one called Amour which seems to be the one favoured by most of the top growers since the demise of Kestrel which appears to be losing some of its colour (the purple speckles on the rose end).

In truth I find Amour really easy to grow compared to other varieties, and the skin usually scrubs up a dream if you can keep it free from scab. From 30 bags last season I managed to win my local show which is always easy enough if I’m honest, but saved my best set of 5 for the coloured class at Malvern. This was a high risk strategy as I’ve never won a ticket for spuds at NVS level before but as soon as I’d benched them in a class with over 20 entries I did think they might have an outside chance of a ticket, the problem being most of the entries are covered with various cloths placed over them by the exhibitor to delay them going green until after judging, so you can never tell for sure. Coming back to a 3^rd place ticket behind only Sherie Plumb in 2^nd and Ray Sale in 1^st was one of my best achievements last season I reckon, in that it was the most unexpected of all. If the tuber in the 9 o’clock position had been more rounded at the end then perhaps I might have been placed higher because my skin finish was on a par with 1^st and 2^nd. These are the fine lines you have to try and be above if you want to compete at that sort of level and you do have to be as critically subjective as you can when selecting your sets.

I planted 40 bags of Amour this year but a couple have failed to come through for some reason. Each bag is filled with peat, and whilst I don’t bother sieving or shredding the peat like a lot of growers do (can’t be fucked to be honest), I do fill them all by hand and break up any big lumps and discard any large twigs as I go. Bit of a ball-ache and a job I certainly won’t be missing in future when I give up the showing.

Due to the humid weather then blight will be prevalent around the country so you do need to sign up to one of the blight warning websites which are easy enough to subscribe to. I am on Blightwatch and I notice that the old ‘Smith Period’ calculation has now been ditched for something called the ‘Hutton Period’ which has much more scientific data behind it apparently. Blight is not something I’ve ever suffered myself but the other day I noticed most of the lower leaflets on my spuds were discolouring to a mottled yellow with darker patches that resembled blight. To the nervous grower this might have led to them taking an overdose of Yorkshire beer (which wouldn’t have killed them as it’s weaker than piss) but as I hadn’t had any warning of blight in my area I wasn’t concerned about that. I think it is magnesium deficiency so have sprayed with Epsom salts in the hope this will rectify the problem. I wonder if the copious amounts of water I’ve been spraying over them have leached the magnesium nutrient from the bags such as there was? In the Winter when we had a new kitchen sink fitted I took the opportunity to ask the plumber to fit me an outside tap at the same time. This is a luxury I’ve never had before so now I can water the garden at will, and as I don’t have a water meter I’ve done exactly fucking that. It has however, meant that I’ve often forgotten it was on, and I’ve buggered off somewhere and come back several hours later to large puddles of standing water and the neighbours complaining about water running through their gardens.