White Potatoes, again.

I’m finding redskins the most reliable - and tasty.

Jersey New Potatoes.
The problem with Jersey Royals is that they are no longer grown in the same way now. 40 - 50 years ago they were grown in seaweed which was collected by horse and cart from the beaches. Vraic added that unique nutty, salty taste to the potatoes so all you needed was to boil them and add a knob of butter.

The white potatoes we had last night for mash were really watery. The best potatoes I’ve bought recently were from Tesco at Christmas and they were just 15p for a bag. I think they were all rounders.

Last summer I bought majorcan new potatoes from Waitrose for several weeks. They were absolutely wonderful.

When their season finished I bought Jersey Royals and they were absolutely dreadful. Expensive as Jersey Royals are. I emailed customer services to complain and to say that they were nothing like Jersey Royals and that their supplier was duping someone!

I had to send a pic of my receipt and had a refund ofnthe amount I paid. Hardly an apology. Won't buy them again ever.

Their white potatoes are unpredictable.

We were on holiday in Cyprus in November.
Self catering,
I did notice how tasty the potatoes were there.

I usually buy red potatoes - any really, though it’s usually Asda’s own. Recently I’ve had two lots of reduced (for some reason I can’t fathom - absolutely nothing wrong with them) Regal Red spuds from Waitrose.
I find the reds pretty good all-rounders.

We’ve just bought 4kg of reds at the farm shop today in a paper sack, we had Maris Piper from them over Christmas, all fine, no wastage.

We changed from Maris Pipers to Vivaldi as we found them to be a much better buy from Sainsburys. We also had composted some of Maris Pipers.

i tend to prefer red potatoes but in general I buy mine from the local market where they are put into paper bags and I have no problem with them. When I had a family at home I used to buy sacks of potatoes and also grow a few myself but now on my one not worth trying to do that. My tendency these days is to cook enough for two days so that I have the first day to go with casserole or whatever and then have some cold that I can saute, and have with a piece of fish , or turn into salad to go with cooked meat or whatever. One lot of work for a couple of days meals!

Whatver happend to King Edwards, Lincolns,Cyprus and Jersey New Potatoes?

Interesting, I had a very poor crop of potatoes last year in my garden. I did read an article saying potato crops ( due to the weather/ blight), would be very poor that year and for those reasons would be dearer. I'm going to plant some this year and see how they do. I think veg and fruit on the whole in supermarkets now are awful. I blanched and froze a lot over Christmas as if I hadn't, they'd end up being thrown out.

Remember that vegetables are quite dependent on the right growing conditions. The very hot dry summers we're getting now might be stressing the potatoes.

I think we need to take the amount of rain all last summer into account. Even potatoes can get too much rain, while growing!

In my childhood, all Scottish greengrocers offered both Egyptian, Cypriot and Israeli potatoes at different times of the year, as well as Ayrshires and King Edwards.

So, importing potatoes from drier climates is nothing new.

Menopauselbitch

I remember my father buying a sack of potatoes and storing them in the shed, they would last for ages, you couldn’t do that now.

Why not? Plenty of local produce markets sell a 25 kilo paper sack of potatoes. You just need a cool place to store them.

bustonpotatoes.co.uk/product/25kg-sack-farm-fresh-potatoes/

My home grown on the allotment potatoes last us from June to December. I store them in cardboard boxes with newspaper between each layer.

I bought some Titan potatoes from Lidl as part of their 5p offer before Christmas. Best potatoes I’ve had for ages - used them for jacket potatoes yesterday. I too usually buy MP but agree that the quality is not what it was.

I’m another one who got sick and tired of the rubbish potatoes the supermarkets were expecting us to buy! I googled ‘farm fresh potatoes near me’ (or something similar!) and now get mine delivered in 25kg brown sacks that I keep in a dark corner of the garage. The quality and shelf life is amazing and they cost £9.99 - £11.99 including delivery! They’re also a good size for baking and the website suggests the best seasonal varieties!

I remember my father buying a sack of potatoes and storing them in the shed, they would last for ages, you couldn’t do that now.

I threw away a few sprouting and withered spuds onto my compost heap some years ago. Every year since I have had a lovely crop of potatoes without any effort. One year we decided to dig them all out of the compost heap. I thought we had got them all, but obviously we hadn't as we continue to get a decent little crop.

I'm lucky enough to be able to buy direct from a producer and they have been fine. I store them in a brown paper sack in my kitchen

Our local market used to sell loose, unwashed potatoes. They lasted for ages.

Anyone else plant the ‘sprouters ’ and then harvest them the following year ? I’ve had some very nice potatoes from doing this. Red ones and white ones.

UK potatoes go on until April and beyond but there are a lot of EU imported being sold and of course imported fries and other processed spuds.

Black marks are caused by bruising during harvesting dry weather at harvest time is the likely cause. Although a dry summer resulted in poor yield, crops in Europe were good so prices very low. Ex farm for unwashed white potatoes is only around £60 per ton, that’s just 6p a Kilo, far below the cost of production

My son, in his tiny garden, has started to grow his own veg, he says lettuces and potatoes are particularly very easy to grow and taste delicious.

Baggs

It's the tail end - or past it - of potatoes in the UK at the moment. Spuds grown here are naturally not going to be at their best. Storing and selling them in plastic bags doesn't help.

I completely agree and actually believe no food should be stored in plastic bags! Paper bags all round please

I find both Asda and Aldi veg is ok I don’t think supermarket veg is anything like as good as proper greengrocers veg however in our town we have only one greengrocer and they are very expensive so I rarely buy from there