Planting spuds!

In a recent blog I talked about ‘chitting’ potatoes – the process of encouraging the seed potatoes to sprout before they are planted. Well, my chitting was reasonably successful, as on my return from a recent visit to China, I went to inspect the seed potatoes and found that the new shoots were about ¾ of an inch long, essentially, almost ready to plant. I would have liked to have left them in my shed for at least another week so that the new shoots were at least 1 inch long but impatience got the better of me and last Friday I planted a row on the Wonderpost allotment.

Potatoes are very easy to plant. After digging over the soil to loosen up the top 6 inches I raked the area level, put down a string line and then with my hoe scrapped out a 5 inch deep row. I then planted the chitted seed potatoes, with the shoots upright in the row, 12 inches apart. After backfilling the trench with top soil I applied a dose of chicken manure to the soil which I then raked into the top couple of inches of soil. The next task will be to earth up the new shoots when they are about 12 inches tall, leaving some top growth above the soil.

Keep your eye on this blog for more tips on growing potatoes. I’m just of the plant the 3 seed potatoes that wouldn’t fit into the row on the allotment into a pot in my garden – don’t forget, if you don’t have veg patch you can grow spuds in pots.

Enjoy your chips!