Gardening: Grow your own spuds

In 1995, potatoes became the first food to be grown in space after they were taken on a voyage with the shuttle Columbia. In 2010, Louisa 'Taters' Pearson will endeavour to grow eight varieties of Solanum Tuberosum in her back yard, creating a succession of carbohydrate delights from summer through to spring.

If you've never grown potatoes, make this the year you procure a square metre of bare earth, a large pot or even some old tyres stacked one on top of the other. Pop in a seed potato or three, cover with compost and then sit back and let mother nature do the rest. I'll be kicking off with International Kidney (think Jersey Royals) followed by Mimi (the cherry tomato of taters) and then a whole selection of carefully chosen varieties (some for roasting, others for salads or baking) before ending with the Vales Sovereign ( a favourite from last year). Further research reveals that the Vales Sovereign is actually an eco-friendly potato. Created at the Scottish Crop Research Institute, this is a potato that needs less water and fertiliser to thrive than the average spud, and which is also resistant to high levels of disease.

My Vales Sovereigns were weighty, although not as big as the heaviest ever potato – a German effort that weighed in at 3.2kg, equivalent to a small dog. The breeding of eco-friendly potatoes is good news, especially as the average Brit eats 103kgs of them a year (about 500 potatoes).

I will admit, though, that every roastie that passes my lips isn't home grown, so what's the environmental impact of industrially produced potatoes? Happily this is a crop that grows well in the UK, so food miles aren't a big issue. On the other hand, non-organic potatoes come in for a heavy dousing of pesticides (three times the quantity used on cereal crops), primarily to help ward off blight. According to the Pesticide Action Network, government research shows that 38 per cent of potatoes sampled contain pesticide residues. This isn't seen to be a health worry, but you might consider it an environmental worry.

Organic growing might sound like the obvious alternative, but it gives only 60 per cent of the yield of conventionally grown potatoes, hence requiring more land and more machinery (with associated fuel costs) to farm them. Next up is storage. Eating new potatoes in season means that less energy has been spent on storage, and while maincrop potatoes can be stored without refrigeration, this tends to become a necessity the longer they're kept. Some producers spray the crops again in storage to prevent sprouting and disease.

If you're a control freak, like me, you'll see the attraction of growing your own. Did I mention that Marie Antoinette used to wear potato flowers in her hair? There's a thought for any summer weddings you're attending. Despite swearing off heritage varieties due to past disappointment, I succumbed this year to the lure of Mr Little's Yetholm Gypsy. With skin that's red, white and blue and its reputed nutty flavour, it will be getting pride of place in the raised beds.

But how to cook it? To keep energy costs down, I should probably be going for the fastest method – microwave? In reality, though, I'll be loading them with oil and roasting them in the oven. Does the organic home-growing outweigh the carbon footprint generated by the cooking method? Possibly not, but that isn't going to stop me enjoying every mouthful.

#149 This article was first published in Scotland On Sunday on March 21, 2010