What to do, 6 inches of snow outside, today has been spent knocking the snow from the shade tunnels before they collapse, and a customer rings up and wants to visit the nursery!

We are now waiting to see if all the seed potatoes will arrive in time for the first potato day at Swindon on 23rd January. We are also waiting to see if we will be able to get to the potato days as there seems, from the forecast no let up in the icy conditions for weeks, Global Warming! lets have some please.

Gardening wise there is little to be done except sit by the fire and browse the seed catalogues deciding what we should be growing for the time that we might be able to plant something.

Picks for 2010, well I shall be growing some Potato ‘Mimi’ this year, this produces unique, cherry sized, red-skinned salad potatoes and because it is dwarf growing it is ideal in containers, and it tastes good too.

Alongside this I will be trialling ‘Blue Danube’, this is another one of those Hungarian bred potatoes from the ‘Sarpo’ stable. This one does not have good foliage blight resistance but is supposed to have good tuber blight resistance. This would be good when I seldom get to the potatoes in time to cut off the foliage when blight strikes. It is also supposed to have better flavour than the other ‘Sarpos’ which would be another advantage.

More recommendations later, off to stoke the fires.

Well welcome to 2010, ushered in by cold, damp , grey weather conditions not at all amenable to gardening. A good time to take a look at seed catalogues or websites to decide on what to grow in 2010. Potatoes are worthwhile to grow even if you only have a patio. Tasty, new potatoes can be produced in large tubs or barrels and are nothing like the shop bought version. However you need to choose varieties carefully and if you are only growing in pots you only need a few seed potatoes. Thats where Potato Days come in, you can buy as few or as many as you want and get good advice too. For a list of those at which we are participating in 2010 see www.potato-days.net for details or e mail sales@pennardplants.com. We will have nearly 100 varieties this year, full listing at www.pennardplants.com . I am posting full planting instructions on the blog as well which will give you detailed help for planting in pots or in the ground.

Potatoes are ‘The King of the Vegetable Garden’ to quote one of the old books so get digging@