Planting my 'spuds'

Today i took the opportunity to plant out my spuds. There is still a bit of frost knocking about but not enough to do any harm. Ive chosen 3 different varieties this year, Maris Peers which is an early variety, Records which are a second early breed and Kerr's Pinks which are main crop. this should keep us in from mid-June on. Ive had my seed potatoes 'chitting' on a few sunny window sills in the house this past few weeks. 'Chitting' is where you allow the potatoes to start sprouting, this gives them a little head start before being buried in the earth....

The pictures shows the 'chitting' process where the foliage starts to form on the seed potato.

So with all that previously done it was the simple task of digging drills to plant the seed potatoes. In a pre-dug and rotovated bed myself and my girlfriend Ciara got to work early this morning. In one bed we have 1 drill of the Earlie's Maris peers and 2 drills of second Earlie's Records (which will be beautiful 'balls of flour' when steamed). I have 27 seed potatoes in each drill planted a foot apart...

Then I raked the dug soil back over the seed potatoes and mounded it up into raised drills.

Well that's the spuds in now and that is the last of the tougher work done and like last year the rewards will be wonderful!!!