A Year Full of Veg by Sarah Raven

Author:Sarah Raven [Raven, Sarah]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781526639325
Published: 2023-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Blue and white borage.

Potatoes

We love new potatoes in our family, so much so we have done five trials over the last twenty-five years to keep up to date with launches of tasty new varieties. We force them inside in March so that we can start harvesting in June and give plenty of space to them in the garden, too.

I remember seeing Monty Don on Gardeners’ World once, digging up his first new potatoes in June and almost running with them into the house where he already had a pan of minty, salted water ready and boiling. That may sound excessive, but it’s true the sugars in these varieties of potato change quite rapidly to starch, so it’s best to eat them as fresh as you can. With the right varieties, you then truly have vegetable-garden caviar.

I love them just dug along with other June veg: some just-pulled baby carrots, broad beans harvested as small as possible and maybe a pile of sugar snap peas. I serve them without meat or fish, but with hollandaise sauce, or a family favourite called Angelica sauce, which is basically a salsa verde (anchovies, capers, green olives and lots of green herbs, extra-virgin olive oil and red wine vinegar) with the addition of three or four hard-boiled, coarsely chopped eggs. It’s filling and utterly delicious, and the freshness of all the produce is the key.

Potato groups

Depending on when they are planted and ready to harvest, potatoes are divided into three groups: first earlies, second earlies and maincrop varieties. If you plant one or two from each group you ensure a good succession.

First earlies we get going with in the first or second week of April; they take 9–16 weeks to harvest. Second earlies are planted by the middle of April; they take 16–17 weeks to harvest. Maincrops are planted towards the end of April and into May, with a longer maturing time of 18–20 weeks.

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