Early spud questions

You can cut spuds in half....they have the annoying habit of being able to grow from just about any small scrap of plant material which is why I never put peelings on the compost heap!

If you cut them in half you will need twice as much space to grow them in.

Christmas spuds are more a marketing thing and a good money spinner for seed companies. You can do it but our climate isn't really suited to it and I'm not sure the results are worth the effort. If God had meant us to eat new potatoes at Christmas he wouldn't have invented roasties.

I don't think my First Early seed potatoes have had enough chits to make it worthwhile chopping them in two. Larger seed potatoes would do better I think.

If you buy loose at the garden centre, then maybe choose seed potatoes that are on the small side and you'll get more-per-kilo and then no chance of infection on the cut surfaces.

I grow XMas spuds - but only in bags. When the bags are freed up by the super early first earlies they then get put aside for reuse for the XMas crop. I plant them on 01-Aug, and I buy seed potatoes prepared for XMas. I have kept seed potatoes back, from Spring, but they are very shrivelled up by then. I suppose you could chill them to slow them down, but that's what my potato supplier does -- and far better than I could and with much more efficient refrigeration storage!

Probably no need to chit at that time of the year - unless the seed potatoes arrive before you are ready to plant them.