Gardening

Horticulture...

...with botanist Dr Dave Aplin

Born and bred in West Dorset, Dave has worked in horticulture and botany locally and internationally, notably in Belgium, Jordan and the UAE. He brings a wealth of practical knowledge with its underlying principles to his writing Let’s get you chitting your plants this spring

According to a YouGov poll, the potato is the most popular vegetable in Britain. There are several advantages to growing your own. It allows you to select your desired texture, flavour and even colour, choosing types that never make it to the supermarket shelves. Shop bought, non-organic potatoes are bombarded with pesticides, which are not needed for home grown plants. This relative of deadly nightshade, tomato, petunia and tobacco, is one of the most productive crops you can grow. Their cultivation has vocabulary that could leave the novice bewildered. Seed, tuber, chitting, eyes, first earlies, second earlies, maincrop, earthing up, blight and scab are all common terms associated with growing potatoes. Let me explain... Visit garden centres and nurseries in spring and you won’t fail to notice signs for ‘seed potatoes’, in this context ‘seed’ doesn’t mean the seed of potatoes, but instead refers to small, virus-free potatoes grown specifically for planting. These are termed tubers. Tubers are the way some plants retreat below ground during unfavourable growing conditions and lie dormant until the weather improves. In the case of potatoes, the tubers are in fact modified, underground swollen stems complete with dormant buds. Garden centres typically have a dozen or more cultivars on offer, but if you go to a specialist nursery, such as Mill House Nursery in Owermoigne, you will be able to browse over 80 from traditional white flesh types to those intriguing blue and pink kinds that retain their colour during cooking, adding creativity to your mash and chips. The next interpretation required is selecting between the variously grouped potatoes for sale. First earlies, second earlies and maincrop. Basically, first earlies need the shortest growing season, followed by second earlies then maincrop. If you want ‘new potatoes’, select first or second earlies, otherwise maincrop should suit unless you’re a connoisseur. Once home, the seed potatoes will need to be chitted. Chit is an early 17th century term for shoot or sprout and is achieved by placing potatoes in the light, encouraging dormant buds, called eyes, to sprout. Once chits are a few centimeters in length, they are ready to plant. Place c.10cm deep, 30cm apart and 60cm between rows, then observe over the next few weeks for signs of emerging shoots. Once seen, lightly cover with soil, or horticultural fleece if a frost is predicted. Once plants are 10-15cm tall, use soil from between the rows to earth them up. This encourages underground stems to form increasing your crop. Potatoes are largely untroubled by pests and disease. Blight, a micro organism, originally grouped under fungi, is the most troublesome during warm and humid summers. If you have alkaline soil your potatoes are likely to have scabby skins, fortunately it does not affect the crop or their flavour but would probably prevent you from winning first prize at a horticultural show. Potatoes are also successfully grown in containers, but alas space prevents me from detailing this here.

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