Jun 4
Carrots and Potatoes
Posted in Crops Harvesting Farming Techniques The Weather Duchy Originals Products , Organic Food by David Wilson
We're grading last year's carrots which came out of the earth in October/November. They've been stored at 3 degrees in a refrigerated vegetable store. They go into our vegetable boxes and we also sell them to other box schemes. The carrots are also used in the Duchy Originals vegetable crisps.
We planted most of our potatoes three weeks ago. We have five varieties: Cara, Cosmos, Robinta, Sarpo Mira and Remarka. The reason we grow so many varieties is that it never pays to have all your eggs in one basket. Some varieties will do better than others in a given year.
Also, they all have different qualities in terms of flavour and texture. For example, Cara is white with a pale flesh and watery texture while Remarka, probably my favourite, is fabulous and floury.
The early potatoes we planted in the first half of March were held back by the cold weather and are just coming through now. We've ridged them up again to control weeds and will harvest them in September. Most farmers would agree that this year has been a challenging one for planting potatoes due to the cold and wet weather. The soil hadn't dried out as quickly as we would have liked. I'm glad the potatoes are in, and from now on we are constantly looking at the crops to keep an eye out for weeds and any disease.
