Season Starts – Chitting Potatoes

Although it’s cold enough to send the brass monkey’s to the welding shop, and the storms depressingly destroyed my main greenhouse, we’re past the winter solstice and the plants know it. Time to start chitting potatoes and the first sowings of onions, broad beans and so on we go.

Potatoes Chitting in Vitopod Propagator – Don’t forget to label them!

I’ve really cut back on potatoes this year. In the past, we’ve ended up wasting excess and, hopefully, this year production will be more in balance with demand.

Temperature set at 8ºC in the propagator

Standard practice is to chit potatoes in a cool but place. As we don’t have a spare cold room available, that has been the potting shed. But, in a cold snap, they could get frosted and damaged or even killed. So far this year, the lowest temperature in the potting shed has been -3.9ºC.

I have protected against that with a thermostatically controlled fan heater in the past. However, with electricity costs as they are, a long cold snap could become expensive. So, I’m chitting the potatoes in my Vitopod. If it drops below 8ºC in the propagator, it will click on and keep the seed potatoes safe.

All the potatoes were bought from Tyddyn Sachau garden centre. They sell by weight, and you pick your own from barrels. Excellent, old school method. It enables you to avoid, mainly, overly large tubers which are less economical. You get more seed potatoes per pound. Within reason, a small seed potato will produce as much as a large one.  Aim for about the size of a hen’s egg.

Potatoes I am Growing 2026

Casablanca – an excellent first early. These will go in the raised bed in the polytunnel, probably in early February, unless the weather goes too cold. Anyway, they’ll be safe from frost under the soil until they’re up. Then I can insulate the bed with fleece, if need be. I’ll pop three tubers into a 50 litre tub, rather than crowd the bed.

Orla – Some describe it as a first early, others as an early maincrop. Basically, left in the ground the tubers put on size but start to be usable in about 12 weeks. It used to be considered blight resistant, but not so much with the modern blight strains. I leave in the ground to grow on, harvesting if – or should that be when? – the blight strikes. Stores fairly well.

Estima – excellent second early. Stores well for an early and makes excellent chips.

Charlottte – another excellent second early. Well known as a salad potato, but the tubers can grow quite large. These will go into 50 litre tubs I got from Elixir last year, four per tub.

Sarpo Mira – very vigorous maincrop. In fact a right thug, it will swamp weeds with ease. Large or should that be huge tubers? Still very blight resistant. Only problem being, if left to grow on too long, the tubers develop hollow heart. Even the seed potatoes were larger than normal, which is why they’re in a seed tray rather than the egg boxes.

Potatoes safely covered in the propagator

Back Border Coming to Life

Daffodil shoots showing and Primrose flowering

At the back of the house we’ve a border that I manage on Darwinian lines. Survival of the fittest. Apart from a bit of rough weeding and chop’n’drop pruning of shrubs, things are left to fend for themselves.

The daffodils are thrusting upwards, and we’ve even got a couple of primroses in flower. Just in case a bee wakes up early, there’s a flower or two behind the house.