Potatoes are one of the staples of our diet. They also grow well in the acidic soil and the cool, damp climate of north-eastern Scotland.

However, potatoes are not necessarily one of the best vegetables to grow, particularly if space is limited.

Potatoes are relatively cheap to buy in large quantities for the table, they need a lot of space, and there’s a lot of work involved if the yield is to be maximised. When we lived in the city and had a small vegetable garden, we didn’t grow potatoes as it made more sense to use the limited space to grow vegetables that were more expensive to buy in the shops.

On the croft, it makes sense to grow potatoes as cultivation levels ground churned up by pigs, we have enough space to grow them without impinging on other crops, and we can grow enough not just for our needs to provide a useful supplement for feeding pigs in winter.

We grow the more popular potato varieties on a field scale to provide the bulk of our needs, but we also grow less common and heritage varieties in our vegetable beds.

Potatoes prefer open, sunny ground. When we grow potatoes in the boar pen shadowed by our sitka spruce wind break, the haulms (the leafy tops) tend to be long, weak and easy damaged by wind. Yields are less, too.

Before planting potatoes in the vegetable beds, we prepare the soil during autumn or winter by digging in large amounts of well-rotted pig and chicken manure. A 4m by 2m bed takes around four large barrow-loads of muck.

We use a different approach when planting potatoes in the fields as they often go in after the pigs, which can mean the ground can’t be dug in autumn or winter. Instead, we plough or rotary hoe the field to be planted in early spring, when the ground is sufficiently dry. The ground is then ridged and well-rotted muck is manually spread along the furrows. (If we had a muck spreader, we could spread the muck before ploughing.)

Two-thirds of our crop is grown from seed potatoes selected from the previous year’s harvest and one-third from commercial seed potatoes bought in late January. The aim is to prevent disease build-up. We replace entire varieties, never mixing saved seed potatoes with new. (In some cases, it is illegal to save seed potatoes as the varieties are subject to plant breeder’s rights.)

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In preparation for planting the early varieties, we lay the seed potatoes out in large trays in late January with the eyes uppermost. The trays are usually placed in the spare bedroom with the window blanked off and the radiator turned down to keep the room temperature around 10ºC. We can’t put them in our outbuildings as the temperatures can be well below freezing March, or even April.

In late February, the window is partially uncovered to allow some light in and encourage the potatoes to develop sturdy shoots. By sprouting the earlies, we get a longer growing season, an earlier crop and a heavier yield.

We don’t intentionally sprout the main crop varieties as there’s not enough room in the spare bedroom for them. Instead, they’re kept in steel coal bins, heavily insulated with straw. We lose some of the outside potatoes to frost in the hardest winters but never more than five to 10 per cent.

The first earlies are planted first, usually around mid-April. We ridge and furrow the beds with two-foot spacings between the centre of each furrow, then place the seed potatoes along the bottom of the furrow with their shoots upwards. Earlies are planted at wellie boot spacing, ie about 12 inches apart.

The ridges are pulled over the furrows, producing new ridges 4-6 inches deep over the potatoes with furrows alongside. This usually provides enough protection from late frosts in late April and May, although it is sometimes necessary to earth up or place a layer of straw over the ridges if shoots emerge before the frosts have ended.

Second earlies are planted in the same manner, about a fortnight after the first earlies.

When the first earlies are going in, it’s usually warm enough in our outbuildings for the maincrop varieties to avoid frost damage. If this is the case, we clear the pens in our byres and spread the maincrop seed potatoes over the floor. As the maincrop varieties go in about four weeks after the first earlies, this is usually enough to see them develop small shoots although they’re not as heavily sprouted as the seed potatoes started in the house.

To plant the main crop, we manually spread well-rotted muck along the furrows and lay the seed potatoes on top. Spacing is at double wellie-boot intervals, ie 24 inches. Again, the ridges are turned onto the potatoes in their furrows, creating new furrows alongside.

As we don’t use herbicides, we’ve found it vital to weed the potatoes at least weekly. Chickweed in particular is prone to swamping the potato haulms, depriving them of light and creating the damp conditions in which potato blight thrives. The fastest manual method is with a long-handled agricultural hoe, also known as an azada.

The potatoes are earthed up when they reach about nine inches in height, and at fortnightly intervals thereafter until the leaves meet between the ridges. We’ve never yet needed to water our potatoes but in drier areas frequent watering is advisable, especially during the first eight to 10 weeks.

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The main causes of crop damage that we’ve encountered are hard frosts and late blight. Slugs are a much lesser problem, especially now that we use nematodes to control them.

We’ve not experienced problems with blackleg or aphis-spread viruses, although the potato inspector who lives across from our croft tells us they can be a problem on the commercial farms.

To combat late blight, we plant a number of blight-resistant varieties. However, not all of these grow as well in our conditions as less resistant heritage varieties. Others lack the flavour and texture of heritage varieties.

We also strive to maintain good air flow along the rows to keep the foliage relatively dry (weed, weed and weed some more). If the weather is warm and damp, we spray with Bordeaux mixture at fortnightly intervals, usually from June onwards and no more than three times in a season.

Using Bordeaux mixture is frowned on in some quarters, but we rely on a good crop of potatoes to feed us for nine months and supplement the pig rations for three. Simply accepting large losses is not an option, so we spray if necessary.

Besides, if we didn’t spray and allowed the crop to fail, we’d have to buy potatoes from the shops, shops buy them from commercial farms, and that means they will be sprayed with either Bordeaux mixture or Dithane. Even organic potato crops are sprayed with Bordeaux mixture.

Potato harvesting is entirely dependent on the weather. With a warm spring and good rain early on, we can harvest first earlies around the end of June, although mid-July is more common. When we’ve had a particularly cold spring, the harvest is delayed until late July or even early August.

We start harvesting second earlies about a month after starting to lift the first earlies. Both early crops are lifted as needed, forking up several plants at a time and only cutting the remaining plants’ haulms back only if blight is likely.

When we lift potatoes with a fork, we push the tines of a garden fork deep into the centre of the furrow, angling it under the adjoining ridge, and levering the plant up before flipping it upside down into the next furrow. We used to push the fork into the base of the ridge but found we were skewering many potatoes.

A potato fork, with wider tines set closer together and rounded points, would be faster and easier with less risk of skewering potatoes, but we haven’t been able to justify the cost of a one or two as yet.

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Main crop potatoes take at least five months to reach maturity and sometimes longer as our summer temperatures are rarely conducive to optimal growth rate. In other words, we have few days where the temperature is higher than 20ºC. On the plus side, the cool conditions allow slower development and prolong leaf cover, which allows the plants to make the most of what sunshine there is.

If we have blight on a few plants, we cut the haulms from those and burn them while continuing to spray with Bordeax mixture. If blight is present on more than 10-15 per cent of the main crop plants, we cut all the haulms off and burn them. The tubers are left in the ground to mature, which gives them thicker skins that are more able to withstand long storage.

When we’re fortunate enough to escape blight, we cut the haulms back about a fortnight before harvesting and again leave the tubers in the ground to mature. We use a scythe to cut the haulms, which are left to dry and then burned.

To test whether the potatoes are mature or not, we lift a couple of tubers and rub the skin with a thumb. If the skin comes off, the potatoes aren’t mature. If the skin stays in place, the potatoes are ready for storage.

We aim to lift the main crop varieties during the mid-October school holidays, which are known locally as the Tattie Holidays. Lifting the crop during the holidays means Linda and the boys are all available to help with the job.

One of our neighbours loans us his 1950s tattie spinner, which is hitched to either his tractor or that of another neighbour and we lift potatoes in the old way: the tractor-towed spinner slices through the soil below the potatoes, a series of rotating arms flings them into a screen, they drop the ground and a line of willing helpers collects them in baskets.

The baskets are emptied into hessian sacks dotted at intervals across the field. It’s a laborious job, but it’s fun, sociable and beats lifting an entire field of tatties with forks.

When the entire crop is lifted, the hessian sacks are loaded onto our Land Rover Defender pick-up to be transported down to the steading for cleaning and sorted.

If the soil is reasonably dry, the potatoes can be spread on the hard standing for few hours before being swept clean with old brooms. If the soil is wet and clinging to the potatoes, we gently hose and brush them before leaving them to dry.

When dry, the potatoes are sorted. The best, hen’s egg-sized tubers are kept for seed for the following year, unless they’re due to be replaced with new stock. Broken potatoes are put aside for immediate use, either by us or for the pigs. Diseased and green potatoes are put aside to be burned.

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We store the potatoes in 10-hundredweight steel coal bunkers as these are rat-proof as well as keeping out the light. The bunkers’ lids and bases have 10mm holes drilled in them for ventilation. They’re spaced 12 inches apart and sat on pallets to maintain air flow.

Before using the bunkers, we thoroughly wash and disinfect them. Once they’re dry, we place about six inches of straw on the base to insulate the potatoes from freezing temperatures.

Alternating layers of potatoes and straw are placed on the initial layer of straw, with 4-6 inches of straw between the potatoes and the sides of the bunkers. The final layer of potatoes is covered with a six-inch layer of straw.

Depending on the weather, we’ve found potatoes will keep in the bunker until at least the end of April and, in cooler weather, until the end of May. Seed potatoes are kept separate to the eating potatoes. All are checked regularly and any that rot or freeze are discarded.

We have considered using clamps to store potatoes, which involves digging a shallow trench, lining it with straw, placing the potatoes on top, covering them with more straw and placing the soil back over the top.

However, neighbouring farmers who used this approach in the past said they inevitably lost large numbers to rats, freezing and rot. To overcome the losses, it was necessary to grow and store many more potatoes than were needed.

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The varieties we’ve grown include:

Potatoes and their uses, pt 1: Milva, Cara, Verity and Pentland Dell (all maincrop).

Potatoes and their uses (part 2): Pink Fir Apple (salad); Colleen and Duke of York (first early); Maris Peer, Edzell Blue and Catriona (second earlies); Lady Balfour (early main-crop); and Remarka, Valor, Golden Wonder and Picasso (all main-crop). We’ve also tried growing Champion (maincrop) from micro-plants.

Potato varieties—Red Duke of York (first early)

Potato varieties—Catriona (second early)

Potato varieties—Courage (second early)

Potato varieties—Valor (maincrop)

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In the past, when we turned on the kitchen tap, clear water flowed out. When we ran water into a white bath, it looked clear. When we checked our hilltop header tank, we could see the bottom because the water was clear.

Except it wasn’t. It was full of gunge.

Two weeks after our new water filtration system was fitted, the foam pre-filter cartridge has gone from white to pale tan to grungy brown. It also has ‘bits’ floating inside its casing.

I did wonder if we had a problem outside so I checked the water coming out the borehole pump. It looked clear. I checked the water in the header tank again. It look clear. I checked the water flowing into the trough halfway down the hill. It looked clear.

I even took the filter casing off and checking the water coming from the supply side. It looked clear.

No, the sad truth is we’ve been drinking, washing and laundering with grungy water for years. No wonder we’re all a bit peculiar.

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January is a daft time of year to do the annual service on Land Rover Defender, especially when you live in north-east Scotland.

I’m daft, so I do it.

Or, at least, I did most of the servicing.

Changing the fluids and the oil filters is being left to another, slightly warmer day because I’m a wimp.

I didn’t fancy lying beneath the Defender on a two-inch thick bed of ice and slush. Nor did I fancy draining oils with the consistency of treacle. Nor did I fancy taking the Defender for a run and then draining off hot oils while lying on ice.

I’ll lie on ice under the truck when it’s an urgent job, but when it’s something that can be left for a week or two until we have a better day,  I’ll go inside and have a cup of tea instead. Especially as everything is done.

Having gone over the Defender, it looks in fairly good shape for its MoT inspection next week although there are a couple of niggles.

The newly fitted handbrake cable keeps kinking, which makes its warning light flash. There’s almost certainly a quick fix for this—it’s just a matter of working it out.

I suspect the track rod end on the left side is worn as the Defender has started veering to that side under braking. I won’t have time to replace the ends between now and the MoT, but it’s not that big a job given a workshop.

I’ll leave it to the mechanics to sort, if that is indeed the problem. And they can set the tracking at the same time.

Fingers crossed, those are the only problems. Well, apart from the amount of ice.

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As I was putting the boys on the school bus this morning, I noticed that not only did we had a beautiful sunrise but there was also a snowstorm blowing in from the west. I decided to see if I could capture the moment when the two events coincided. By the time I brought the camera out and made it to the top of our hill, the snow was coming down hard on us but not on Dunnideer or Bennachie. I decided to start photographing and see what I could come up with.

I caught some fairly typical scenes of the sunrise behind Bennachie and Dunnideer, then, moments before the worst of the storm hit our hill and turned everything grey, I captured a few frames just as the edge of the storm passed in front of the sun. Job done and time to run for somewhere out of the storm.

I checked the loft header tank. It was empty. The main header tank on the hill was half full—about 7,000 litres of water.

I checked the flow at the stop cock where the water enters the house. It was good, so the pipe wasn’t frozen.

I methodically worked my way through all the sections of pipe leading up to the loft header tank: water was passing through both filters, water was passing through the stop cock after the filters, and water was reaching the stop cock in the loft.

However, no water was flowing from the ball cock in the header tank. I dismantled the valve. It was in good condition and no water flowed when it was removed. I re-assembled the valve.

I removed the section of pipe between the loft stop cock and the ball cock. It was clear. I turned the loft stop cock on and water flowed.

After re-attaching the pipe to the stop cock but not the ball cock, I turn the stop cock on and water flowed but only halfway up the pipe.

It appears we don’t have enough pressure to push the water through the filters and into the loft header tank. The bottom of the hill tank is about  20 metres above the top of the loft tank, which has provided sufficient head to push the water through the pipes in the past but doesn’t appear to be enough with the extra pipework.

To complicate things further, we need water to run the central heating. And the sub-zero temperatures mean our 2,000 litres of reserve rainwater is frozen solid in its tanks.

I’m now running the borehole pump continuously to see if filling the hill tank to the brim makes a difference. Fingers crossed!

Tonight, we had pasta with tomatoes, olives and fennel sausages for tea. The fennel sausages, made yesterday, were poached for 25 minutes, then skinned and sliced. The sauce was made with a diced onion, minced garlic, pasata, a tub of garlic olives we found on special in the supermarket, dried basil and minced parsely. Simple and perfect.

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Today, I have been mainly making sausages. Lots and lots of sausages.

Fennel, garlic and chilli sausage

• 2.5kg coarsely minced pork (mix of belly and shoulder)
• 6 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 2 tbsp fennel seeds
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp salt
• 1.5 tsp cracked black pepper
• 1 tsp dried mild chillies, crushed
• 0.5 tsp cayenne pepper

Mix well and stuff in sausage casings. Don’t be tempted to make this into a spicy sausage—the fennel/garlic/chilli combination works best when the chilli is hinted at and doesn’t dominate.

Bangers

• 2.5kg coarsely minced pork (mix of belly and shoulder)
• 400g breadcrumbs
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tbsp cracked black pepper
• 2 tbsp fresh sage, finely minced (halve quantity if using dried)
• 1 tbsp fresh thyme, finely minced (halve quantity if using dried)
• 2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 tsp ground allspice
• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

Mix well and stuff in sausage casings. These work best with fresh sage and thyme. The flavours should be robust.

Mixed spice sausages (aka The Taste of Christmas)

• 2kg coarsely minced pork (mix of belly and shoulder)
• 2tbsp white wine vinegar
• 1 tbsp cracked blacked pepper
• 1.5 tsp salt
• 0.5 tsp of each of cinnamon, nutmeg, paprika, ground cloves and thyme

Mix well and stuff in casings. Hang the sausages in a refrigerator, with a drip tray/bowl below, for 4-6 hours to allow excess moisture to drain away. Then use or freeze. The spices shouldn’t be overpowering—this is supposed to be a subtle sausage. They work best poached in simmering, not boiling, water or stock for 20-25 minutes. On first tasting these sausages, the boys dubbed them “The Taste of Christmas Sausages”.

Allspice and chilli sausages (pictured)

• 2kg coarsely minced pork
• 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 2 tsp allspice
• 2 tsp dried chillies, crushed
• 1 tsp cayenne
• 1 tbsp Tabasco sauce

Mix well and stuff in sausage casings. These are robust, spicy sausages—intended to last people awake at breakfast.

Garlic sausages

• 2.5kg coarsely minced pork (mix of belly and shoulder)
• 250ml dry white wine
• 1 bay leaf, minced
• 1 tsp thyme, minced
• 1 tbsp cracked black pepper
• 1 head of garlic, broken into cloves, peeled and minced
• 1 tbsp cracked black pepper
• 2 tsp salt

Steep the bay leaf and thyme in the white wine overnight. Combine all the ingredients in a bowl, mix well and stuff in casings. Hang the sausages in a refrigerator, with a drip tray/bowl below, for 4-6 hours to allow excess moisture to drain away. Then use or freeze. These are another robustly flavoured sausage. If poached, the stock makes an excellent base for soup—skim the fat off first.

And last but not least, a batch of our Vaguely Cajun sausages.

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I didn’t intend  to fill the blog with images of the sky over Dunnideer and Insch, but a long run of stunning dawns, sunrises and sunsets in the past few months has seen me post a run of landscape photographs. Earlier this week, I decided the blog needed a break from such photography. Until this morning. When the Big Lad alerted me to a particularly stunning dawn sky, I had to share it. So much for good intentions.

I was pottering about the house early this morning, just before pig feeding time, when the Big Lad ran down the stairs, shouting ‘Pa, Pa, look at the sky!’ We had an almost unbelievably spectacular display of early dawn light. I grabbed the camera and lenses, threw the boys a chocolate brownie each as thanks (yes, before breakfast) and ran for the hill. I caught some spectacular images but only have time to post this one for now. Unfortunately, the cold killed the camera battery and my hands well before sunrise but I’m more than happy with what I did get.

One or more of the following subjects must be used:

• honour
• shame
• passion
• abandonment
• hair
• a knife
• music
• prison
• a market square
• a letter
• a musical instrument

I set yesterday aside as the day to write my first draft, then waited for inspiration to swim by. I don’t chase inspiration—it’s too elusive. It’s much better to set a few mental nets, then do other things as I wait for the inspirational fish to be scooped up. Sometimes I’ve even lucky enough to catch myself a kraken.

So, what did I find in my nets?

1. A golden sunrise that tinted the landscape in shades of brown:
2. A friend’s video on facebook—he’s training in sword and buckler work.
3. The Osprey Men-at-Arms books The Swiss At War 1300-1500 and Italian Medieval Armies 1300-1500.
4. Our youngest boy’s name, which means ‘Brown Lord/Noble’ in Gaelic.
5. The prompt words honour and abandonment, quickly followed by shame and passion.
6. A friend’s birthday.
7. A rather dirty little girl playing in the park in the village.
8. The prompt word knife, although it changed to a dirk and then gained a tuck sword for balance.
9. Son House‘s take on  John the Revelator:
10. Revelations 6:4: And there went out another horse that was red: and power was given to him that sat thereon to take peace from the earth, and that they should kill one another: and there was given unto him a great sword.

I took my catches, jumbled them up together and came up with 1,532 words. As it’s a piece of writing for assessment, I can’t publish it on the blog but I can say that, yes, it is a story from the dark side.

Next, I have to analyse the story and write a commentary on it. First, though, I need some sleep and then I’ll have to spend a day making sausages. After that…

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