Homes and Gardens / chitting
Time to get chitting spuds
Excitement in the garden, for in what still feels like the depth of winter, it is time to chit spuds
Chitting is placing them on a windowsill to encourage shoots to form: such thrills. But at this moment in time the gardener will take any action they can get. I sometimes wonder how much of a look in potatoes would get if they had to be started off in April or May, when every seed is demanding attention. But they don’t. They need to be started off now, just as every gardener is twiddling her thumbs and wishing for spring and shoots and life. This perfect timing alone – even if we didn’t love the eating of them – would be enough to ensure their inclusion in our gardens forever more.
And we do love the eating of them: even the most basic of spuds is transformed by a knob of butter or a turn about the frying pan. The beauty of growing your own of course is that you do not have to rely upon the most basic type, in fact it would be almost immoral of you to grow anything dull when there is so much variety available. I have long leant towards the little and the waxy varieties and I can recommend ‘Belle de Fontenay’ for this, as well as the understandably well loved ‘Pink Fir Apple’, with its chestnutty texture and nutty taste (but vast growth and annoying knobbly bits) and its lovely offspring, the far more manageable ‘Anya’.
Have a look at www.potato-days.net for events nearby where you can get your hands on all manner of potatoes, or buy online now from Somerset-based spud specialists Pennard Plants www.pennardplants.com and get chitting.
is needed now More than ever
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