Tag: Maris Peer

Maris Bard

Maris Peer potatoes

Maris Bard are first earlies, so in six weeks time, by the beginning of June, we should have a crop ready to use.

Maris Bard potatoes
Maris Peer second earlies ready to plant

We bought the potatoes back in January or February but we’ve been waiting until now, when there’s less risk of a heavy frost.

Maris Peer

Maris Peer

We’re going for Maris Peer second earlies again this year but also trying some ‘ultra early’ Maris Bards. You have to buy them at this time of year as the popular varieties soon get picked over but we won’t be planting them until March or April, depending on the weather, so until then we’ll be chitting them: letting their shoots develop in a cool, light place (the back bedroom window sill).

Maris Peer

drawing potatoes

Just harvested half a row – that’s two or three feet across our raised beds – of Maris Peer second early potatoes and decided they’d be a suitable subject for attempting to draw with a Canada goose quill.

quill and feather ink and wash drawing of Maris Peer potatoes.

I tried using the feathered end of one of the quills to add the wash. This is Noodler’s Black Ink.

I’ve been reading books on Hokusai and Quentin Blake, who was one of the tutors during my time on the Illustration course at the Royal College of Art. Birds feature a lot in Blake’s work and he’ll sometimes use a feather to draw and paint with.

Maris Peer

chitted potatoes

We left it too late to buy our Maris Peer second early potatoes last year, so we took no chances this year and got these on the back bedroom windowsill chitting two weeks ago.

Chinese brush chitting potatoes
Telephone Pen box

I found the Telephone Pen nib that I used scratchy and blotty, but that’s fine as I wanted an inky effect. Controlling my usual urge to add cross-hatching, I used a Chinese writing set to add the ink wash. The brush is made of goat’s tail hair.

It’s been a bad day for the local goats: they’re serving goat curry at the takeaway at the end of the road. It smelt delicious, but we haven’t been brave enough to try it yet.

Maris Peer

Maris peer

We’ve never had a better crop of potatoes than last year when we grew Maris Peer, a second early. They were versatile, heavy cropping and we didn’t have any waste because of blemishes or damage. We like their taste and texture; they never ‘boiled in the water’ and turned slushy. However, we were late buying them and our local garden centre had only these last few left, so we’ve also gone for some Maris Bard extra earlies.

ink
De Atramentis ink bottle, original drawing 2.5 cm, one inch, across. Even enlarged, there’s no sign of the ink running into the watercolour wash.

This drawing took just over an hour and it’s unusual for me as it hasn’t been drawn on my iPad. It’s drawn with a dip pen with a John Heath’s Telephone Nib 0278 F and De Atramentis Black Document Ink in a Pink Pig cartridge paper sketchbook. I enjoyed the feel of pen on paper again, so I’ll be doing a few more dip pen drawings.