Oh Chit!

To encourage your potatoes to have nice sturdy shoots you should chit them before you put them into the ground. You're basically getting them to sprout before you plant them, giving them a bit of a head start.

You need to start about six weeks before you intend to plant them. The piccie above is our Blue Danbue maincrop being chitted. It's easy peasy, you just stand them into an empty egg carton and put them where there is plenty of natural light – a windowsill is ideal. We really need to get them into the ground now – we've run out of compost (again!) so they will have to wait until next weekend now.

This year we've gone for Accord as our earlies, they're great for growing in planters which is exactly what we've done.
The diagram above shows how you plant them in patio containers. As the plant grows you earth it up and add more compost. Last year we just filled it right up straight away and stuck in our seed potato. We got an OK crop but we're hoping this year if we actually plant them correctly we'll get a biggest harvest!

Both our earlies and maincrop are going in containers – we had a lot of trouble last year with our main crop – partly our inexperience and partly the dreaded mollusc invasion. Hopefully this year we'll be able to avert any major disasters.

Happy Mashing!