Yet another reasonable day so off to the plot for a few hours to finally get the potatoes in the ground. I know they’re late, although not as late as some might think. I’ve noticed a lot of people are sowing and planting too early. Early is fine, so long as the weather holds but it only takes a late frost to undo all the benefit. Late April has been known to bring us everything from glorious sunshine to snow and ice.
Anyway, enough of the excuses – it was past time to get the spuds in. This year we’re not growing as much as in previous years. We’ve planning on moving later this year so I don’t really want to overload. Of course, with the wonderful system we have for house moves in England, nothing is certain. Our move to where we are now took six months from when we had agreed sale on the old house and purchase of the new. The best case we can see is us moving in October and the worst.. well we’ll be as we are next year.
Back to Planting Potatoes
This year I’ve got three varieties:
- Swift which is a quick first early that Val really likes (2 Kg of Seed, 40 tubers) which gave me 4 rows.
- Arran Pilot, another first early that I really like (1 Kg of Seed 10 tubers), 1 row.
- Linzer Delicatesse, a salad potato that was recommended to me as a superior version of Charlotte (1 Kg of Seed, 12 tubers), 1 row and a bit.
That’s it apart from a little earthing up if frost threatens until the end of June when I should be able to start eating them. If the weather changes for the worst, I may cover them with fleece but being late this year, I don’t expect to need to.
Onions and Shallots
Val had picked up some end of season bargains – so I planted a pack of Red Sun shallots by the shallots and Sturon onion sets around the edges. I’d more to plant but wasn’t feeling too well so headed for home.
Suffering from a toothache and not being able to get into the dentist until Friday I’ve been taking painkillers. Well they dull the pain but make me feel really tired. Combine that with the warm weather and not having a drink for three hours, I suppose it was to be expected that I wouldn’t feel on top of the world.
Chitted Potatoes
I have been trying to chit mine for ages, but not much is happening. Any tips? They are in an unheated lean to with a glass roof down the road from you. (Woodbastwick). Half of them have 2mm chits (?) Is it worth putting them in? I was planning on using potato bags, so I suppose I can’t really lose…
To make matters worse they were in egg boxes on the washing machine with labels, but the washing machine went ballistic, and the potatoes fell off so I don’t know what’s what. But I suppose it doesn’t matter that much. They are all earlies.
I’m not sure why they’ve not chitted for you but I’d certainly plant them out – after all, the worst case is they don’t grow and the best is they do well.
At least they’re all earlies so you’ll be able to harvest at roughly the same time – 13 weeks from planting.