On Sun, 8 Jun 2003 21:06:13 +0000 (UTC),
(jane) wrote:

Another spud problem here - more of a quandary.

I've been growing International Kidney (aka Jerseys) and they are
described by T&M as Second Earlies. Every other seed supplier I looked at
said they were First Earlies.

Who should I believe and should I therefore dig when they flower or when
the foliage dies down?

They are also my first ever (deliberate*) homegrown spuds so I'm feeling
very unsure!

I also chose these as my first spuds, but I didn't know they were the
same as Jersey Royals until I looked them up later.

From what I can gather from books and from varying descriptions at the
point of sale, they can be used as earlies, when they are salad sized
and delicious, or as early maincrops when they have grown a bit
bigger. When we harvested them at a later stage they tended to fall
apart when boiled.

I have read that Belle de Fontenay can also be grown as either earlies
or maincrops and I'm going to see how that works this year.
--
Stuart Baldwin
news\at/boxatrix\dot/co\dot/uk