Hampshire's Fifth Potato Day will take place at Whitchurch on Sunday, January 26th.

Previous days have been highly successful, with visitors from all over the South. Last year, over 700 saw a UK record of 127 varieties on sale to amateurs in one place at one time.

The great thing about potato days, which were dreamed up by Jackie Gear, executive director of the Henry Doubleday Research Association (HDRA), is that you don't have to buy a fixed quantity. You can buy as few as one tuber of one variety.

The HDRA is the country's largest organic group, with almost 30,000 members and one of its aims is to prevent the loss of old varieties of vegetables.

These are at risk because of the EU's "National List" scheme, which requires growers to pay a fee to allow them to sell each variety: those lower down the sales list are dropped to keep down costs.

Ten years ago, backed by Waitrose, Jackie Gear put together a collection at the HDRA's HQ at Ryton, near Coventry, to see if amateur growers were interested in a wider range than the dozen or so then available.

As a result, there are now five regional days, in addition to the one at Ryton and they attract a some 10,000 visitors.

The events have talks on how to grow potatoes and cookery demonstrations to show what to do with the produce.

Chris Bird, of Sparsholt College, will give the talks and Kathy Pollock, once a Potato Council demonstrator, will again be showing several ways of cooking the "humble spud".

It's an ideal opportunity to try a new variety or two, or to buy enough for a small garden. (If you do know what you want all the varieties are also available in 3kg nets.)

Varieties available will range from those very familiar from the supermarket shelves, through to those of which only one acre of seed is grown in the entire world.

Some will be old, having been raised in the 1850s through to the very latest releases, which some seed catalogues would have you believe are "exclusive" to them or are "new".

A catalogue will describe each variety on sale and merchant, Richard Stevenson, of Wantage's Charlton Park Garden Centre and Dave Chappell, of Monmouth, who grows 300 varieties each year, will be on hand to help.

There will be activities for children and a free coloured (all the way through) seed potato for each child to take home and grow!

The day starts at 10am in the Testbourne Centre in Micheldever Road and runs to 3pm, although there is no guarantee all varieties will last. There'll be refreshments and family entry is only £2.

* More details on 07790 492677, or from phil.cooper@totalise.co.uk