Growing to eat 2023

[OccupiedPalestineBlues]

What is this chitting you speak of?

That’s a fair question.
The little I do know is that it’s a way of getting your spuds started off.
You just put your seed potatoes uncovered on a windowsill, or other bright place (traditionally sat ‘eyes’ up in an egg carton) and they start to grow shoots from their ‘eyes’.
When the shoots get to an inch or more you plant them and they carry on growing.
I’m not well up on spud growing but I presume we do it because they’ll just sit dormant if you bury them unchitted in cold soil?

I’ve not done much with potatoes myself so I’ll be pleased to take advice on this from any regular spud growers out there.
Also any recommendations for varieties (I’m have a go at growing pentland javelin and charlottes this year).

 

[Saddleworth2]

That’s a fair question.
The little I do know is that it’s a way of getting your spuds started off.
You just put your seed potatoes uncovered on a windowsill, or other bright place (traditionally sat ‘eyes’ up in an egg carton) and they start to grow shoots from their ‘eyes’.
When the shoots get to an inch or more you plant them and they carry on growing.
I’m not well up on spud growing but I presume we do it because they’ll just sit dormant if you bury them unchitted in cold soil?

I’ve not done much with potatoes myself so I’ll be pleased to take advice on this from any regular spud growers out there.
Also any recommendations for varieties (I’m have a go at growing pentland javelin and charlottes this year).

Yeah, I fancy growing some spuds in containers. Any advice on that most welcome.

 

[MadchesterCity]

It all sounds good MC.
I’ve got a biggish plot nowadays but, at my last house, I had an area about 4m x 5m which I filled with raised beds + a couple of square metres of hard standing where I grew in containers.

Because of the space challenge I looked out for methods that made best use of the small space and, even though I have more room now, I still use some of them.

My favourite adaptions were a heavy reliance on string, runner, French climbing beans and peas like yourself (because of the huge crops they produce for the small space they take), small fruited tomatoes (because they ripen quicker so give a better crop when grown outside in our short UK growing season) and the vertical growing of courgettes.

It was a surprise to me but courgettes are very easy to train up heavy canes. As vertical plants they take up a fraction of the area that traditional horizontal growing uses and it keeps them up off the ground so you get better air flow around them (less powdery mildew issues) and they don’t get bothered by slugs at all.

I never got going with potatoes or winter squash but this year I’ve bought some first early & early varieties that I’m chitting to grow in containers like you.

The crown prince squashes are my favourite crop, very rewarding to grow and taste delicious. Your right on the peas and runner beans, the amount you can harvest from runner beans is quite amazing, nice flowers aswell which attracts the bees, I tress them up and will probably grow about 40 - 50 plants. I just remembered I am doing man get out aswell.

Courgettes are awesome, I normally have 4 or 5 plants and we are picking every day/ other day at peak of summer. Easy to cook with, bizarrely I guess I never buy them in a shop as I eat so many of them in season, you can freeze them aswell

 

[MadchesterCity]

That’s a fair question.
The little I do know is that it’s a way of getting your spuds started off.
You just put your seed potatoes uncovered on a windowsill, or other bright place (traditionally sat ‘eyes’ up in an egg carton) and they start to grow shoots from their ‘eyes’.
When the shoots get to an inch or more you plant them and they carry on growing.
I’m not well up on spud growing but I presume we do it because they’ll just sit dormant if you bury them unchitted in cold soil?

I’ve not done much with potatoes myself so I’ll be pleased to take advice on this from any regular spud growers out there.
Also any recommendations for varieties (I’m have a go at growing pentland javelin and charlottes this year).

I have the following first early varieties salad blue, Heidi red and premiere.

I’ve also grown bluemoon radish, unfortunately my crop were infested with parasites a bit like this website when bad news breaks

 

[MadchesterCity]

Yeah, I fancy growing some spuds in containers. Any advice on that most welcome.

I use these containers, I chit my tatties as OPB stated and then put them a third of the way down and then another one a little higher. Then level them up to allow more tatties to grow. I said to OPB I had 8 tatties planters but on another count I have 14 tattie containers lol

 

[Barcon]

The ground outside is solid, like concrete.

Rule is never to plant until at least the last week of May due to frost.

Can't plant seedlings, because like OPB, I've done it many times before due to lack of patience and all I get are leggy plants.

I do have some tomato plants in pots growing which were seeds from shop tomatoes, but I've no idea what they will actually produce. They can go out in the garden in just over 3 months time.

First up will be the asparagus. Makes my day to see the shoots breaking through, summer is close by.

Can you at least see some grass after the past week of warm weather and rain?
Agreed on the May twofour weekend. It's a long way away.

 

[OccupiedPalestineBlues]

Can you at least see some grass after the past week of warm weather and rain?
Agreed on the May twofour weekend. It's a long way away.

Here’s a last frost date map, not sure how reliable it is.

United Kingdom Interactive Average Last Frost Date Map

Average Last Frost Dates for United Kingdom Cities and Towns Mapped

www.plantmaps.com

When I lived in north Manchester the local allotmenteers worked on the premise that the last frost date was the end of the first week in May.
I used to push it a bit, subject to the weather forecast, by putting my courgettes out about 2 weeks earlier at the start of the last week in April. I used to put them under a polythene cloche and never had a problem.
I’m now in north Shropshire and, what with us being out in the countryside, the last frost date is said locally to be a fortnight later in the last week in May.
Having the benefit of a polytunnel here I’m sticking with the last week in April. I’ll harden everything off first and, then when I’ve got then planted in the soil, I’ll throw some fleece over them if the forecast looks dodgy.

 

[Barcon]

Here’s a last frost date map, not sure how reliable it is.

United Kingdom Interactive Average Last Frost Date Map

Average Last Frost Dates for United Kingdom Cities and Towns Mapped

www.plantmaps.com

When I lived in north Manchester the local allotmenteers worked on the premise that the last frost date was the end of the first week in May.
I used to push it a bit, subject to the weather forecast, by putting my courgettes out about 2 weeks earlier at the start of the last week in April. I used to put them under a polythene cloche and never had a problem.
I’m now in north Shropshire and, what with us being out in the countryside, the last frost date is said locally to be a fortnight later in the last week in May.
Having the benefit of a polytunnel here I’m sticking with the last week in April. I’ll harden everything off first and, then when I’ve got then planted in the soil, I’ll throw some fleece over them if the forecast looks dodgy.

He and I both live in Southern Ontario. Last frost is usually around the May 24th long weekend.
Even later if further north.

 

[OccupiedPalestineBlues]

He and I both live in Southern Ontario. Last frost is usually around the May 24th long weekend.
Even later if further north.

Haha I was presuming that you’d be here in Blighty without thinking it through - doh!

However, on the topic of you both being in the USA. I must be cheeky and ask if it’s possible for you to get hold on any of the more hardy avocado varieties?
Where I live corresponds roughly to USDA zone 8 and I believe that the Mexican varieties , though not grown commercially due to being very thin skinned, are often grown in home gardens in the USA.
Iirc Del Rio / Pryor, Mexicola Grande, Opal / Lila, Wilma / Brazos Belle or the famous and probably most frost tolerant ‘Bacon‘ variety of avocado are all said to be good down to USDA zone 8.

The only varieties available in the uk are the West Indian and Guatemalan commercial varieties. Though these are often, as it happens, imported into the UK from Africa or the Middle East.
I’m on the lookout for someone who could hopefully post me a few seeds of the Bacon variety, or similar Mexican cultivars, if I stump up the postage.

To stick with the topic I must ask if I’m barking up the right tree here?

 

[Slipper One]

You just put your seed potatoes uncovered on a windowsill, or other bright place (traditionally sat ‘eyes’ up in an egg carton) and they start to grow shoots from their ‘eyes’.
When the shoots get to an inch or more you plant them and they carry on growing.
I’m not well up on spud growing but I presume we do it because they’ll just sit dormant if you bury them unchitted in cold soil?

I never buy seed potatoes, during the winter months I just put any store bought potatoes that I find sprouting in a paper bag or box in a dark cool place and then plant them in the spring in a trench with plenty of compost around them.

Then as the plants grow, I backfill over them and leave just leave the tips of the leaves showing and keep doing that.