Jamieson Brothers Premium Scottish Desiree - Maincrop
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Desiree seed potatoes produce oval, red skinned tubers with pale yellow flesh. Medium dry matter, firm cooked texture, good boiling, fresh French Fry & mashing quality.
Desiree seed potatoes are a popular choice amongst many celebrity chefs including Delia Smith & Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall, due to their potential to make fantastic roast potatoes.
Desiree is a heavy cropper and early bulking with high resistance to drought and good resistance to potato virus Y and powdery scab. Susceptible to potato cyst nematode and misshapes on heavy soils. Moderately susceptible to spraing & mild mosaic viruses.
Maincrop seed potatoes mature in 125-140 days and, if planted in late April, can be harvested by mid August.
After purchase, carefully empty your seed potatoes into shallow boxes or trays – egg boxes or apple trays are ideal. Keep these away from frost and store in a cool area.
6 weeks before you want to plant your early potatoes you should move your potatoes into a light area of about 10 degrees celsius to produce a strong, thick sprout, making sure that the potatoes are rose eye upwards.
The potatoes will turn green when exposed to the light but do not worry as this is normal. If you wish to grow large potatoes you can carefully cut out some of the eyes on the potatoes so that only a few chits are formed and the potato will produce larger but fewer tubers.
If you wish to grow many small tubers to eat, like baby potatoes, then leave all the eyes intact and plant the potatoes at half the distances shown below.
How to prepare the beds
With the use of a garden fork simply turn the soil over and work in some well rotted manure to provide essential nutrients for your potatoes. If you are unable to use manure then specialized potato fertilizer can be used but the fertilizer should be placed below the potato and a layer of soil or compost put in between so that the potato roots grow down into the soil to establish properly.
The potato bed should be a trench about 4-6 inches deep and you place the potato into the trench and cover with soil so that good peak is formed. I have videos below that you can follow for even more information.
First Earlies can be planted 12″ (30cm) apart with 24″ (60cm) between each row.
Second Earlies and Maincrop can be planted 15″ (37.5cm) apart in row widths of 28″ (70cm).
Always make sure the eyes are facing upwards and planted at a depth of between 4-6″ (10-15cm).
Taking care of your growing crop
As the potato haulms grow you should take care not to let them get frosted at any point. Using a fleece for large haulm coverage or rowing up soil over the top of new shoots will help the potatoes survive early morning frosts.
Frosted leaves will turn black and the plant will be stunted.
Make sure your plants receive adequate water during the growing season to avoid the plants becoming stressed.
In most areas June can be the very start of blight season. To help combat blight you can use our new Blight Guard product
Harvesting your Potatoes
Potatoes are usually cured after harvest to improve skin-set. Skin-set is the process by which the skin of the potato becomes resistant to skinning damage. Potato tubers may be susceptible to skinning at harvest and suffer skinning damage during harvest and handling operations. Curing allows the skin to fully set and any wounds to heal. Wound-healing prevents infection and water-loss from the tubers during storage. On a dry day simply dig the tubers and leave them on the surface of the soil until the tuber skin has dried before placing them into a hessian storage bag
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