Sandy's Garden ... Can Ayrshires be grown in Falkirk?

Shops have been selling a selection of the first early varieties, potato varieties which, as their name says, are harvested at the beginning of the potato season in June and July.

Second earlies follow in the later weeks of July and in August; and main crop bring up the rear in late summer. However, potato aficionados generally consider that first earlies are the best of the bunch; and there are many who think that ‘Ayrshires’ are the crème de la crème.

Potatoes have been cultivated for between 7 000 and 10 000 years. Botanically, the cultivated potato … a root vegetable rejoicing in the name Solanum tuberosum … is a perennial plant, a member of the nightshade family - and yes, that makes it a cousin of deadly nightshade.

Its origins have been traced to Peru; and its cultivation spread north through the indigenous peoples into many parts of the Americas. Spanish explorers and colonists encountered potatoes in South America during the sixteenth century and introduced them to Europe.

Since then, the potato has become one of the staple foodstuffs for people in much of the world, following maize, wheat and rice in order of importance. Mankind has long sought to improve on nature by developing bigger potatoes, heavier-cropping potatoes, disease-resistant potatoes, tastier potatoes and what-have-you to the point where there are 5 000+ types of potato now, nearly all developed from varieties which came originally from Chile.

Potatoes were first grown in Scotland in 1739. They grow best in loose, sandy, free-draining soil, a growing medium which allows them to expand readily as they develop and also favours harvesting, for the tubers leave the ground without much difficulty and can be gathered up undamaged.

Although they will grow in many parts of Scotland, they do particularly well in Ayrshire, where the local climate benefits from the Gulf Stream, that warm ocean current that flows from the Gulf of Mexico parallel with the US coast toward Newfoundland, Canada, and then continues across the Atlantic Ocean toward north-western Europe as the North Atlantic Drift.

By the later years of the nineteenth century potatoes were being grown in many parts of Ayrshire – and elsewhere in Scotland, of course. Then, in 1875, Mr. Dunlop of Morriston Farm at Maidens visited the Channel Islands with his friend Mr. Hannah of Girvan Mains Farm.

Their purpose was to learn more about the potato farming industry there; and the two men came to the conclusion that they could grow the same varieties of first early potatoes in Ayrshire as were grown in Jersey.

They could; and during the next 20 years, Ayrshire potato farmers turned increasingly to first early varieties such as Superb, Sutton’s Regent, Puritan and Jubilee. Then, in 1897, James Clark of Christchurch in Hampshire cross-bred Magnum Bonum and Early Regent potatoes to create a variety he called Epicure. It produced high yields of firm, round, white, floury potatoes and became an instant success, soon becoming synonymous with ‘Ayrshire earlies.’

Its smooth, sweet, creamy taste is considered to make it one of the finest of all potatoes and to this day, more than 120 years later, many will say that the best Ayrshire earlies are still Epicures.

Until 2017, I could grow Epicures in Stirlingshire and describe them by the synonym ‘Ayrshires’. But Ayrshire first early potatoes were then given protected geographic indication (PGI) status by the European Union (EU).

They must be planted, grown and harvested within the areas of North Ayrshire, East Ayrshire and South Ayrshire councils and the description ‘Ayrshires’ is legally protected throughout the EU. But now that the UK has left the EU, I suppose I can plant Epicures next March and grow them as ‘Ayrshires’ in Falkirk once more.