Out of my shed

Now is the time to order your seed potatoes or better still, to see if there is a ‘potato day’ near you where you can get to talk to the suppliers and buy varieties that you didn’t know even existed. Potatoes are listed as 1st earlies (ready in June and always very expensive to buy), 2nd earlies, maincrop and late varieties so you can dig up a fresh crop all summer long and even into autumn. At fairs you can buy tubers in small quantities-especially useful when you only have a small space or growbag to plant them in and you get to see some amazing heritage and heirloom varieties. These following websites will take you to lists of potato days that are being held all over the country in the next 2 months;

http://www.potato-days.net/ and http://www.potatoday.org/potatodays.htm

A variety of heritage potatoes

If you can’ get to a potato fair, then there are plenty of online suppliers to order from too. I  ordered some Pink Fir Apple seed potatoes (a ‘late season’ variety who’s delicious nutty flavoured potatoes will be ready to eat in September/October) and they were with me in a matter of days. Impressive! All I need to do now is to chit them. What does ‘chitting’ mean? Chitting just means encouraging  potatoes to sprout before they are put into the ground, especially useful to get early  varieties off to a flying start.

Chitting potatoes