Finally our potatoes are here and we have started chitting – the essential process that starts them sprouting shoots so you can plant them in the plot.
It took ages for them to arrive – well behind the lingonberry and redcurrant bushes that we ordered at the same time, and to be honest I was on the verge of chasing them up.
This year, then, we are growing three varieties, and have a total of 31 tubers to get us started. They are Rooster, a favourite all-round variety of ours that is great as a general use potato, Arran Pilot, which is a baking potato, so we’re hoping will grow nice and large, and Blue Danube, which is an early potato.
The Blue Danube tubers are a bit of an experiment. They were on offer at 99p for 10, so too good not to try, we thought – particularly when we saw that they have a bright purple skin, which will look great on the plate.
The flesh is still white, fortunately, so they shouldn’t look too garish when sliced open in a nice summer salad.
We’re chitting them all by putting them into used egg cartons on a worktop in the outhouse. This way they’ll be kept dry and well lit from a window in the end room, which should promote the sprouting. When the shoots are about an inch long – which should be a month or so from now – we’ll start planting them out in the potato bags that we keep behind the greenhouse. Hopefully, as it’ll be early April by then, the risk of frost will have passed.
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