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.

Related posts:

1. Chitting this year's potatoes
2. Growing potatoes in bags
3. The potatoes have started