Allotment spud-growing in April

When I was growing up there were two types of potato in the world. First you had new potatoes and second you had, well…all the rest.

New potatoes were always small and were always boiled in their skins. All the rest had to be peeled – a chore for kids like me and my sister, allowed only blunt peeling knives. But, once they were peeled, these larger spuds were likewise most often boiled ('groan… not again!'), sometimes mashed ('…ok…') or, rarely, chopped into sticks and fried ('it's chips… hooray! hooray!').

We're children of our time, so the saying goes. In the case of my sister and I, the fact that our mother's cooking skills had been learnt during an era of wartime shortage was unquestioned. Neither were we about to question the binary spud planet we lived on. And even if we had, we already knew mum's answer: 'What do you mean, only two? Count yourself lucky you've got any!'

Some time after I'd grown up I started growing my own vegetables. With some amazement I discovered that, in reality, there weren't just two types of potato but hundreds. Hundreds!

In some respects I guess I've never quite got used to the idea of such radical diversity. And my amazement renews itself every April, which is of course the second great sowing month of the season when, among many other things, most of us veg gardeners will be dobbing-in our spuds. As usual then, this year I'll be swapping seed spuds like mad with my allotment neighbours and growing as many different kinds as I can conceivably fit into my scanty plot of ground. Among them:

These Fir Apples are that good, I've often eaten them in the ancient Irish style – picked up with the fingers with nothing besides but a pinch of salt, and glass of stout to wash them down. But they're just as brilliant in potato salads, with devilish additions, such as dill and mayonnaise.