Alan on how to get the best spuds
Nothing beats growing your own to get bumper crops of great-tasting potatoes. Alan Titchmarsh shows how
here is something wonderfully comforting about potatoes – spuds, taters, tatties, call them what you will. Growing them is an earthy form of satisfaction that yields the root vegetables that have fed the British population since their introduction to this country in the 16th century. What did the Incas do for us? They gave us the potato, a vegetable they had been growing in Peru since at least 5,000BC. The Spanish conquistadors brought the potato to Europe in about 1570 and Sir Walter Raleigh introduced it to his estate in Ireland in 1589. Quite what we all ate with our fish before that date is unclear. Rich in minerals, vitamins, calories and protein, the potato contains almost no fat and has proved its worth over the centuries, as well as being responsible for one of the most tragic famines experienced by mankind in Ireland during 1845-49, when a million people died as a result of catastrophic outbreaks of potato blight. And yet we love it still. With any luck, blight will not befall you should you give potatoes a go. I plant them every year, and for those of you with memories of my time as the host of
Rich in minerals, vitamins, calories and protein, the potato contains almost no fat and has proved its worth
Gardeners’ World, you may remember the black and white cat that so often accompanied me in my work, even sitting on my back while I planted my taters. It’s not surprising really − his name was Spud.
Grow your own
Yes, you can buy spuds by the sackful at any time of year, but there is tremendous pleasure to be had in growing your own, especially the first earlies. Prise them from the soil as early as May in a good year and carry them triumphantly to the kitchen before boiling them, then smothering them with butter, salt and pepper, closing your eyes to savour that wonderful flavour. You don’t need huge amounts of space. Yes, you can grow them in rows on the veg patch or allotment, but you can also cultivate a few in large tubs or sacks that take up no space at all. The secret in both cases is to make sure that the earth surrounding them is fert i le without being freshly manured and that they don’t go short of water while they are growing. The crops are grown from what are known as ‘seed potatoes’ – tubers especially raised for the purpose. You can plant any potato and it will produce a crop, but if the tuber is infected with virus disease (impossible to detect), then yields will be reduced. ‘Certified’ seed potatoes are likely to be virus-free. January is the perfect month to start, since the heaviest crops have been found to be produced by tubers that have been placed in a light and airy place to sprout, before being planted. This is a process that goes by the name of ‘chitting’ (‘chit’ is a
17th-century word for a shoot or sprout). Pop the seed potatoes into an empty egg box, ‘eyes’ uppermost (you’ll spot a sort of withered umbilical cord when they’ve grown), and pop them on a cool but bright windowsill. You don’t need to do anything but wait a few weeks until the shoots are about an inch long, and then rub off any spares so there are just three or four sprouts left. Then plant the tubers where they are to grow – weather permitting in March for the first early varieties, April for second early and maincrop varieties. These names refer to the speed of ‘bulking up’ – the first earlies being the quickest to mature. There’s little point in chitting maincrop spuds as they are given a longer growing season anyway. What makes a good seed potato? Not necessarily size. Tubers that are firm, with no signs of rot or fungus disease, and about as big as a hen’s egg are perfect. Folk who are frugal sometimes slice up larger tubers, but this risks fungal infection (and if you own a mobile phone and a car I suggest that this is one economy too far). In open ground, potatoes enjoy a sunny spot in well-drained soil − they will struggle in deep shade. Plant in ground that was manured for a previous crop and give it a good sprinkling of blood, fish and bonemeal. Wait for a mild spell to plant and avoid committing the tubers to frozen or boggy earth just because the calendar tells you it is time to do so. Only in prolonged dry spells will the potatoes need watering and, as the shoots break the surface, pull the earth up around them to make a long ridge, so that just the
very tips of the shoots are visible. This has two benefits – it protects the shoots from frosts (which would otherwise blacken and kill them) and it keeps the developing tubers in the dark, thus preventing them from turning green, and becoming bitter and poisonous. If frosts are forecast, cover the shoots completely with soil. You’ll hear that potatoes are a very good crop for ‘cleaning up’ the soil – especially if it is new to cultivation. You will very quickly realise that it is you who is cleaning up the soil by virtue of the regular earthing up – an operation that can stop once frosts have passed and 15-20cm of soil has been pulled up around the plants. Carefully hoe off any weeds between the rows until the foliage has made a canopy that covers the ground and makes weed survival unlikely.
Harvest times
If you lack any ground in which to cultivate spuds, then you can grow them quite satisfactorily in a tub or a sack of compost, but your yields will be lower than in open ground. It’s still worth a go, though. First early potatoes will be ready from late May or early June, second earlies from mid-June onwards and maincrop spuds from September. Furtle around them with a fork to see how big they are and then decide on the moment. Flowering is a good indication that the crop will be ready. Dig them up with a fork, a plant at a time, and make sure you get all you are entitled to! It’s easy to accidentally leave the odd potato behind, which not only reduces your harvest but there is also the potential for that potato to harbour problems over winter. The chances are you will harvest all your first early and second early varieties as they mature, but maincrop potatoes can be left in the ground until the foliage dies down. That said, if the tubers have reached a good size, dig them up, dry them off briefly and store them in paper sacks in a cool, dark place as soon as you can to prevent them from being attacked by those nasty, small, black-keeled slugs. Leave them in the ground too long and something else will be enjoying the roots of your labours.