Chitting Potatoes

The potatoes arrived through the post this week.  I mmediately put them out to chit. I use egg boxes for this. It is said you should place them “rose end uppermost” but I often have trouble working out which is the rose end. So I have put them with what I hope is the rose end up, and will check regularly to see if any are upside down. They need to be in a frost-free place, light, but preferably not in direct sunlight. So I put them on the sill on the windowless side of the conservatory.

I chose varieties with these criteria in mind. Firstly, with the earlier spuds, flavour, rather than yield is all important. Also I like a waxy texture.  With later varieties, I want blight-resistance and high yield.  The varieties I have chosen are as follows:

 (i)  Accord  This is the first time I have tried Accord, which is a first early. It is said to be  very waxy (which I like – who needs to mash new potatoes) and high-yielding.

 (ii) Vivaldi Another new one on me. Vivaldi is a 2nd early and nicknamed “the weight-watcher’s potato” as it has fewer calories than many and has a creamy flesh which doesn’t need butter added to improve the flavour.

(iii) Charlotte  I love the flavour of Charlotte and have grown it in the past as a 2^nd early. This year I want to use it as a salad potato.

(iv) Kifli   Kifli is an early maincrop. I tried it for the first time last year. Even though it is a maincrop, it has a distinctive “new potato” flavour, which we loved. In addition it has some blight resistance. I am using my own once-saved seed.

(v) Sarpo Mira  This is a storage maincrop potato which I have grown for several years now. The flavour is just average, and the shape can be strange, but it has fantastic blight resistance. The first year I grew them, the blight hit the allotments in August and swept through like a bushfire. Everyone around me cut their spuds down as tradition recommends, digging the tubers up a couple of weeks later. They did get a crop, but suffered smaller yields. I cut down half of my Sarpos, and had similar small yields. The rest, however, I left to grow on. It was noticeable that very few of the leaves showed signs of blight. Those that did I simply plucked off and put in the incinerator.  When I dug the spuds up in October, there was a superb crop of large, undamaged potatoes.  I have been saving my own seed of Sarpo Mira but one or two of the spuds from last year’s twice-saved seed showed signs of spraing, a discoloration caused by virus, so I bought fresh this year.

(v) Sarpo Axona  Another storage maincrop. This is the first year I have tried Axona. They reputedly have the same blight resistance as Mira, but a more regular shape.

(vi) Cara  One of the traditional storage varieties, nicknamed “the allotmenteer’s friend, because of its high yields, great taste,  and some blight-resistance.

In theory it is not necessary to chit maincrop potatoes. However, all my varieties are very late, so I think it is a good idea to get them going before putting them into the ground, to give them enough time to produce a decent crop.