Lucy explains how to make the most of the next few weeks
I don’t know a gardener who doesn’t like potatoes – and for good reason. Between the bakers, jackets, roasts, chips, mashes, salads and news there area plethora of uses for the humble spud –we just can’t get enough of them. So, be sure to hit the potato season running by buying some seed potatoes now.
Of course, the super-organised among us will have already done this. ‘Seed’ potatoes (virus-free tubers sold by variety name at garden centres and online) are on the shelves as soon as the New Year arrives. They’re grouped as ‘earlies’ or ‘maincrops’ depending how long they take to mature (100 and 130 days respectively).
Your seed potatoes can be ‘chitted’ now (laid in trays in a light, frost-free but cool spot such as a porch or unheated spare room). This essentially starts them into growth, even though they’re not in the ground. It’s a useful process for early and second early varieties, as the chits are essentially stocky shoots. Encouraging them to form means that these early potato varieties race into growth as soon as they’re planted. It’s a real highlight of the gardening calendar to harvest early potatoes, which are primarily grown for flavour rather than bulk. It’s up to you whether you chit maincrop tubers, or not. Doing so means they’ll die back earlier than if not chitted, so yields could be smaller. But if you live in a blight- or slug-prone area, chitting them can allow harvests before these problems strike. If you decide not to chit maincrop varieties, simply store them somewhere cool and dark.
Unless you can provide extra warmth, there’s nothing to be gained from planting tubers outside earlier than mid- to late March (they just sulk in cold soils, and could even rot). Instead, sit tight or, if you have room in a warm greenhouse, set yourself up for a delicious treat come mid to late May by planting two or three early tubers now in a large pot
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