This year is the first time we have grown fir apple potatoes. They are supposed to be harvested in September but I was impatient to see how they were doing so I dug up one plant.
There was a bowl of potatoes that was enough for two meals for the two of us so I probably need to wait for a bit longer for the plants to produce a better yield.
First fir apple potatoes
There was however this rather funny specimen.
Rude shaped fir apple potato
Potato from a different angle
Novelty veg always brings a smile.
Click here to see the history of my flock.
Keith always grew them, they are a hard potato, very good to have with salads, he
never peeled them, just gave them a scrub, but I liked to peel them, quite hard to peel.
but nice for a change.
Ours scrape really easy, you can almost just pull the skin off. I wonder if that is because we dug them up a bit early. They have a waxy texture and we thought that they would be really good for potato salad. I also liked the fact that they don’t have any worms.
I gave up on maris piper which had always been a favourite but every year got wire worm and we wasted so much plus it’s horrible to deal with. The early potatoes and the fir apples don’t seem to get the wire worm so far so we will stick with these until that changes. Our tomatoes are finally ripening and are really good, the best we have ever had.
We have also had our best year for courgettes. We gave Andrew and Steve some and I am cooking lots of dishes with them and then freezing. We have spicy sausage and courgette, chilly pork fillet and courgette plus the inevitable ratatouille filling the freezer plus eating them cooked different ways every other day.
Over all this has been the best year for ages apart from the broad beans and the fact that the runner beans are so late. They are only just starting.
I’m loving reading about your chickens (and your veggies). We kept hens, and a few rosters on occasion, until we moved out of the city and into a different smaller city that has strict poultry rules. We toy with the idea of having a few illegal bantam hens for eggs, but we aren’t really interested in becoming close with code enforcement.
I haven’t grown potatoes ever as an adult, though I do remember helping to harvest some as a child. These look so “home grown” which is the best. When you put all the work into growing your own vegetables, it’s almost disappointing when they look just like the stuff from the regular grocery store.
I love keeping chickens and the eggs are the best ever. They may be small (bantam eggs) but are fresh and have orange yolks due to a good varied diet and are so much better than any you can buy.
Veg is much the same, may not look like shop bought, but again so fresh and just better because it’s your own. It’s not about saving money but just about the experience of picking your own and enjoying the whole process. There is something so satisfying about it. We often say that although we could never be self sufficient there is a huge satisfaction when sometimes we eat a Sunday roast and have only shop bought the meat.
That is one interesting looking potato!
We thought so.