Early potatoes

Grow early cropping varieties for the best flavours and the best tuber count in a limited space

- Kris Collins

THERE’S something magical about a crop that grows unseen until final harvest. No matter how many times you may have done it before, the buzz from lifting a healthy crop of potatoes, revealing the results of all your efforts, does not diminish.

If you have the space, it’s good to grow a range of early and main crop potato varieties. A mix allows for a long harvest window, surplus for winter storage and, best of all, diversity on the dinner plate. But if you only have room for a small crop of potatoes I would always recommend earlies over main crops. After all, why choose a main crop when the equivalent of your limited harvest can be picked up at the supermarket for very little cost? Far better to treat yourself to the fresh flavour of home-grown early potatoes.

Having separated the earlies from the main crops, they are again split into two groups, the fastest-maturing first earlies – ready for lifting in June and July, and second earlies for lifting in August. Plant tubers from both groups and you’ll have three months of fresh ‘salad size’ potatoes to enjoy through summer.

Keen growers will likely already have first earlies chitted for planting in the next couple of weeks. You may be able to find pre-chitted first earlies for sale now, but if not there is still time to get some earlies or second earlies and have them chitted for planting out in late March/April.