Potatoes are the British staple and the ultimate comfort food; from delicious roasties to fluffy jackets, crispy chips and creamy mash. The potato is packed full of vital nutrients. The calories in potatoes are low, they’re naturally fat- free and are bursting with vitamins and minerals and when served with their skins are a great source of fibre.

Jack Bucks Farms grows a number of different varieties:

Maris Piper is a premium potato for roasts, chips and mashed. We also grow Tyson, Saphire and Safari and we try to achieve as high a percentage of ‘baker’ sizes as we can.

PLANTING

The land is ploughed in the autumn, winter frosts are important to help break the soil into a fine tilth.

We grow our potatoes on a wide rotation of at least seven years. This minimises the risk of soil pests and diseases which would reduce yield and skin quality. In April the soil is usually warm enough to begin planting. The land is cultivated to produce a fine seedbed, allowing the roots to grow freely. The seed potatoes are planted into ridges to give the roots plenty of room to grow and help prevent the tubers from being exposed to light which would turn them green.

Harvesting and grading will keep us busy for around six weeks depending on conditions. We store all potatoes in one tonne wooden boxes in temperature controlled stores. We will start selling in November to allow the boxes and stores to be used again for celeriac.

We sell our potatoes through Nene Potatoes who are a group of 35 like-minded potato growers who have pooled resources to market their own potatoes to supply supermarkets and wholesale markets. Link to www.nenepots.co.uk