[shokkyy]

In the winter I always buy spuds by the sack from my local garden centre, grown at a local farm. In the past my very favourite variety was always Marfona, because they're lovely creamy spuds that keep very well and tend to be absolutely enormous. This year, apparently, the farmer's Marfona crop didn't fare well with the weird weather conditions. The only varieties that did well for him were Wilja and Binji. Now, I've never heard of Binji before, but they really are nice spuds. And they're clearly a very sturdy variety if they managed to thrive this year when other varieties didn't. I'm not sure if they're the same as Bintje, which according to Google is a Dutch variety.

Anyone know Binji/Bintje (if they are the same)? I'm presuming they must be a maincrop variety, which I don't normally bother growing, but I'm thinking about having a go with these next year if I can track them down. I've certainly never seen seed spuds called Binji or Bintje.

Incidentally - last year a 25kg sack was selling for £5.99 or £6.99, depending on variety, but this year the price has shot up to £11.99, because of the appalling weather conditions.

[arugula]

With the spellings you've given, nothing is coming up on the British Potato Variety Database search, so they may not be available for sale as seed potatoes in the UK - yet. Could you find out from the farmer who grew them where s/he got the seed?

[Lottiman]

Morning shokkyy, Bintji was one of the trial spuds that I grew this year. I grew admittedly only one plant of eight variety's most did not do well including Bintji, but as we know it was an awful year for growing and I do believe your soil condition and type makes a massive difference. Any way your right it is a main crop spud,yellow coloured, oval shaped,floury texture I got mine from Charlton Park garden centre Wantage hope this helps.

[mumofstig]

according to this
http://www.leefarmpotatoes.co.uk/main-crop

Bintje is pronounced Ben jee so that must be what they are growing

Looks as if Tuckers sell the seed.

[JayG]

So, the variety has been around since 1910, is the most widely grown yellow-fleshed potato in the world, and I've never even heard of it (or seen it as a seed potato in garden centres.)
 
How can a potato variety that sounds almost too good to be true not be better known? (unless it's just me!) 

[mumofstig]

apparently it's grown in Aus and NZ as well  cos Skip listed it a while ago

http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=19736.msg239810#msg239810
and Trillim grows it
http://chat.allotment-garden.org/index.php?topic=80777.msg904425#msg904425

Perhaps in the UK, it's in all those supermarket bags that are just labelled 'white potatoes' 

[m1ckz]

when i was working,,i had a fish n chip shop,,severel years when studs where short in uk, the dutch binji where imported and they made great chips,,not sure how they boiled though,,,but yes there is a dutch binji ok

[Trillium]

I've grown (Dutch) Bintjes for the past few years and love them. They resemble a russet in shape but don't have the mottled skin design. They're fantastic baking and cooking potatoes with great flavour and insects don't bother them much. They also yield well.

No potato does well if the weather/soil is too wet, not even Bintjes but they did reasonably well in our drought, better than our other usual varieties, so it'll now be our maincrop potato. If you think your weather will be wet again, mound up planting rows a bit for some drainage and plant the seeds into that.

[shokkyy]

On my search for info on them, I did come across one article that said the variety initially had trouble with market acceptance because they're yellowish in colour and a lot of people insist on spuds with white flesh. Course that's not the case now, because people have got used to spuds in all shapes and sizes, though supermarkets certainly don't tend to stock the weirder varieties. But I'm kind of surprised you don't see the seed spuds marketed by most suppliers, because they're clearly a very good variety.