As the foliage has just about gone, I decided to harvest and taste my potatoes grown from seeds of Salad Blue. The foliage all had some colour in the leaf veins - I think the colour is a dominant gene - so I expected to get coloured potatoes. The first pot I tried (Spud 6) contained only 4 but they were a reasonable size weighing 5 oz altogether, and they were a very deep indigo.
The second pot (Spud 2) contained 16 potatoes and these were a lovely amethyst colour. There were 16 of them and they weighed in at 9 oz altogether.
I'm looking for flavour initially, and cooking qualities (I don't want a plate of dark blue mush!) but I'm also taking yield into account.
I steamed a large one from no. 6 and some small ones from no. 2 and the flavour of no. 2 was definitely better - 3 of us agreed on that.
More to follow. I shall try 2 more and pick the best, then the last 2 and finally a taste-off with the 3 winners. My aim is to keep some of the best in the fridge bottom till spring and grow a row of my own - maybe 'Amethyst' - potatoes.
9 comments:
Have you ever had blight on these? I'm looking for resistant varieties, and it's not ewasy to get information on the rarer varieties.
How wonderful! I found a purple spud one year at Borough market, it was a French variety called Vitelotte. Yours look very similar. I wouldn't mind a plate full of purple mash, would break the ice at parties!
I grew Edzul Blue last year (and inadvertantly in one area this year too!) and found they disintigrated even with careful cooking.
The colours of Spud 2 are wonderful though!
those amethyst ones are almost too pretty to eat. almost.
Oh dear, I'm being conservative again {giggle}. Same problem as with non-red tomatoes, having real trouble getting my head around purple pots!
The colour of those potatoes is amazing. Why don't we ever see interesting looking things like that in the shops?
I steamed them to try to ensure they didn't disintegrate Hazel - bu I think Edzel Blue is a main crop - Son of Salad Blue, a so-called salad spud SHOULD stay tgether?
It's a pity we don't get this sort of thing in the shops Sue.
Robert - these were grown from seed this year. So far none has had blight but I don't think that implies resistence necessarily. Here on the East Coast of England we haven't had blight on anything (yet!)
They're certainly pretty. If they taste good, though, that is the proof. I love seeing people being careful and thoughtful as they compare crops. I'll get there some day!
I think that is a very excellent result from seed grown potatoes. Thanks for sharing!
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