Chitting And Chips – Time to Plant Your Tatties
They don't look like much, but these are late blight resistant Sorpas
The instructions say “Order your seed potatoes early and aim to get them in shallow trays by mid February”
It’s late March and my seed potatoes have only just arrived! Well it’ll be fun to try and grow potatoes again. The last time I tried, they were got at by some sort of blight, so they weren’t a great success. Then I read about a disease resistant variety called Sórpa (pronounced Shorpa); the accent over the o is because they were developed by a Hungarian family called Sávári (pronounced Sharvari).
OK I’m all out of accents. The Savari family have been breeding potatoes with a high resistance to late blight for over forty years. Late blight caused the potato famine in Ireland. There are six Sarpo varieties and I bought Sarpo Mira. Sarpo Axona is the other well known variety. They are red skinned and produce a high yield.
It is best if they are allowed to sprout before planting. This is called ‘chitting’ – so good to get another gardening term under the belt for discussions down the pub.
I am hoping that my chitting Sorpas get a move on and chit quick because I really like home made fish and chips.
Note: I don’t think Sorpas are available in the USA, but growers over the water can get a resistant variety called Defender, for making fries of course!
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