It is the time of the year when a gardener has so much work that it is impossible to take a proper rest. And today the time has come to plant the main crop of this year, the mighty potato.

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It was only this year that I learned the term “chitting”, i.e., sprouting the tubers before planting them into the ground. I do not actually do that on purpose. The potatoes do that by themselves, and they force me to go along with it.

About a week and a few days ago, I noticed that the potatoes were sprouting, so I took them out of the cellar, sorted them out of the mesh bags into crates, and I put them outside in my tool shed. There they were protected from night frosts, but the temperature was a few degrees lower than in the cellar, so the growing stopped. And during warmer days, I actually took them outside, and I laid them out in the shade so the tubers get a bit of light. That way, the sprouts remain short, thick, and relatively strong, instead of becoming long, spindly, and brittle.

When doing this, I also noticed the differences between the varieties. The red varieties Bellarosa and Camel have white-pink colored sprouts. Dali has yellow-white sprouts. And Agria had sprouts of an interesting purple-lilac shade that I forgot to take a picture of.

I managed to plant both yellow varieties today. They went into the ground and will be hilled up. The Agria is an indeterminate variety, and I remembered from the past that Dali can also make more than one layer of tubers when hilled up. So both of these should benefit greatly from being planted deep and subsequently being hilled up with soil.

Tomorrow I will start planting the Bellarosa and Camel varieties directly onto the lawn.