Spuds, spuds, glorious spuds.
Early earlies – get a taste of new potatoes by planting one tuber (seed potato of your choice) in a large tub in a greenhouse or coldframe. Half fill the tub with compost, put in the tuber and cover with more compost. Add more compost to cover the shoots as they appear. Water from time to time. Harvest when the plants begin to flower, about 10 weeks after planting.
Our favourite potatoes are Red Duke of York, a first early with pale yellow flesh; Jazzy, a waxy second early, good as boiled ‘new’ potatoes and Ratte with a nutty flavour and buttery texture (Pink Fir Apple is the closest in taste but rather more knobbly).
There is a unique family of tasty varieties, developed to resist potato blight that are worth trying too. http://sarpo.co.uk/home-culinary/
The Sarvari Research Trust (SRT) is the organisation that breeds these potatoes; based at Henfaes Research Station, the farm owned by Bangor University here in North Wales. Henfaes is wedged between the Carneddau mountains (part of Snowdonia) and the sea, near the village of Abergwngregyn on the beautiful North Wales coast. Bendigedig!