Friday 26 February 2016

Chit hits the fan



Them new taters are kicking off in the greenhouse, with the first sprouts - or chits as they're known - starting to shoot.

While main crops probably aren't worth a punt when you weigh up how cheap they are to buy in the supermarkets, the amount of ground they take up for months and the risk of the dreaded blight; the earlies are a different story.

Last year, we had the first spuds in the ground in mid-February. It might have been mild enough to get them going, but frosts had us reaching for the fleece a few weeks later.

This time around, we're going to leave them in the greenhouse to chit for a bit longer - covering them with newspaper at night to fend off Jack.

The best we grew last year were Sharpe's Express. They came on tasty, with a decent yield. We liked the sound of Swift, but its low-growing haulm doesn't flower, meaning it was hard to tell when they were ready to dig.

Cara - a second early, strictly-speaking - cropped well into early summer before the blight got to them. We tried a main crop, Sarpo Mera, with mediocre results both crop and taste-wise.

We're pinning our faith in Red Duke of York and International Kidney (aka Jersey Royal...) this year, to see how they get on.

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