We’ve started chitting this year’s seed potatoes. It seems a bit early but B&Q have them in and they’re chitting in the store. We don’t want to be caught out – some years seed potatoes sell so quickly you can’t get the varieties you want. These are, from front to back: 1st earlies – Pentland Javelin, Arran Pilot; 2nd earlies – Charlotte; main crop – King Edward, Desiree.
Chitting spuds
They’re in an unheated garage with a clear plastic roof. We’ll have to cover them in fleece if a hard frost is forecast.
The geraniums we’re storing over winter are in the same garage – still flowering. Last year our geraniums died in the severe frosts of December 2010.
Overwintering geraniums
Although we could do with a frost to kill off pests, hopefully it won’t be as cold as last year and our geraniums will survive.
I don’t think it is too early to chit, you will just have some nice long chits when you do get them in the ground.
I would be doing mine as well, but I need to order them from the UK (we live in France) as the French don’t grow baking potatoes. So all the seed spuds here are for salads or roasting etc, and for 5 years we kept trying different varieties to see if we could grow some lovely big spuds, but to no avail.
So this year I am ordering Maris Piper and a variety called Remarka which are really big bakers. My uncle is coming over in March, so he will bring them over with him – horrah !!
Ive got my first spud in trays waiting to start to chit, i got some desiree from wilkinsons and my 1st Estima and 2nd Vanessa from the internet.
This year I am starting my first “serious” garden, and I was wondering if you know how much potatoes I should plant per person?
I want to live off our veg as much as possible year round.
Also, just wanted to tell you that you have a great blog and I am caught up in reading it (rather than tidying up the one I just made!).
As we are vegans and love spuds, we grow loads. This year we will plant 32 earlies, 32 second earlies and 32 main crop which should be enough for 2 adults for a whole year. Last year we planted 16 earlies, 16 second earlies and 32 main crop and ran out of earlies before we’d got bored of eating them and before the main crop were ready. I hope that helps.
Thanks for your friendly comment about our blog.
Thanks, that’s really helpful for me too! I can use that as a measure of how many we might need. Emma
Thanks for that info!
Looks like I better find a big ol area as I need to do enough for 5.
With that many plants (96 wow!) how do your store them – do you clamp or store them elsewhere. That’s been our main problem, as our potatoes have started chitting, when we actually want to eat them
We store them in paper sacks in a (just) frost free shed, in the dark. Yes, ours start sprouting – just about now – but they’re still edible until they go soft. We might have over done the purchasing this year, it depends on the weather. If it’s dry again we’ll need them all but if it’s wet we could have a big surplus!