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Talkback: Buying seed potatoes
mark thomas2
Posts: 2
in Talkback
its my first year with an allotment and I'm confused …… chit or not to chit???
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Here it is http://www.gardenersworld.com/forum/fruit-andamp-veg/too-early-to-chit/241304.html
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Mark,chit the earlies but don't bother with main crop.
Just noticed that all of the potatoes in the cupboard have sprouted. That is 24 seed potatoes in all. Not sure what I will do with so many apart from give them away.
Can you not plant them all?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
I suppose I will have to find the space! But dissapointed as I dont want them alltogether.
It's ok, you harvest the earlies early and leave the maincrop ones in the ground for longer
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Chit them in the light, in a cool place, then they will grow short strong shoots. If they are kept in the dark they will grow long and lanky and get knocked off easily.
They won't all come together as you can leave them in the ground until you need them. But you won't be able to resist digging them up and eating them with lashings of butter!
If you are a beginner it is actually easier to leave maincrop to the professionals and concentrate on wonderful earlies and second earlies. Maincrop are in the soil so long and are prey to horrors like blight.
The main object of chitting is to get the potatoes off to a head-start when it is still too cold to put them in the garden. Good Friday used to be a traditional day for planting.