Friday the 2nd of October was National Potato Day. Mr Mc Keown’s class got an invitation to Eddie Finnegan & Sons Farm in Balrath.

E. Finnegan & Sons is a family run business which currently employs a staff of over 25 people.The farm focuses mainly on growing good, quality Rooster, Kerr’s Pinks, Maris Pipers, Home Guards and Queens. At the start of the year, they load their potato outfit onto lorries and travel as far as the sandy soils in Co. Wexford to plant 100 acres of early crop potatoes. These are harvested in June which allows their valued customers to exclusively enjoy tasty new season potatoes. Their main crop is locally planted on the rich and fertile lands of Co. Meath. Planted in March/April, they are then harvested in September/October.E. Finnegan & Sons are one of the leaders in the Irish Market supplying potatoes to leading supermarkets. Their potatoes have a distinct packaging of Red and Green that separates them from other brands. Their potatoes are for sale in Dunnes Stores supermarkets nationwide. They also do a chilled potato range to include baked potatoes, wedges and oven chips. They can be purchased in Supervalu and in Hugh Maguire’s Ashbourne.

All week second class have been learning interesting facts about the potato. Did you know…

Potatoes are packed full of energy, low in fat and bursting with vitamins and minerals. Compared with pasta and rice potatoes give you much more nutrients for your money.

Potatoes contain more potassium than bananas.

The jacket potato contains more vitamin B1 than a portion of broccoli or cauliflower.

China is the world’s largest potato producing country, and nearly a third of the world’s potatoes are harvested in China and India.

French Fries were first served in America in 1801.

In October 1995 the potato became the first vegetable to be grown in space. NASA wanted to develop super nutritious versatile spuds to feed astronauts on long space voyages.

The word “Spud” comes from spuds, which were used to dig holes for potatoes.

The world’s biggest potato was grown in Germany in 1997 weighing in at 3.2kg- the same weight as a small dog !!!

When we got to the farm Paul explained the life cycle of the potato to us.



We then got a tour of the farm and saw where the potatoes got washed, graded and bagged.

Paul brought us on a the tractor and trailer down the fields to look at the cattle. We even got to see the bull.



We had a spud and spoon race. It was very funny.

When we came back to the farm we got our pictures taken behind a cut out spud.

Even Mr Mc Keown joined in the fun. We think it’s a big improvement !!

We sang our potato song we had been learning all week.

After our busy morning Paul gave us chips for our lunch made from Finnegan’s spuds. They were SO DELICIOUS !!!

After lunch we went down to Balrath Woods for a run around and a play on the climbing frame.

We had a fantastic day. We will definitely be telling our Mams and Dads to buy Finnegan’s potatoes from now on !!!