Chitting

[organic]

Hmm - must have been a maincrop then.

Same question about the half and half experiment. Anyone done such a thing?

[matthew2riches]

I planted earlies one year without chitting and they just rotted... yet the maincrop produced mounds of spuds.

[greenfingers007]

I put my spuds out for chitting last weekend, in my green house, started to go good guns, however the shoots have started to go brown and droopy? would that be from frost?

Will they still be o.k.

[Bigmallly]

Don't know why but I thought they had to be in a cool light place so mine are in unheated greenhouse. Censors of opinion dictates they should be in a light "warm" place so I'll move them to heated GH tonight.........

[Shadylane]

I put my spuds out for chitting last weekend, in my green house, started to go good guns, however the shoots have started to go brown and droopy? would that be from frost?

Will they still be o.k.

Yes, probably and no probably not, sorry They need to be kept frost free or they'll go mushy I think. They ideally need to be in a cool room (not freezing) with indirect sunlight inside the house. If it's too warm the shoots will grow long and spindly as they will if there's no light. Mine are in the kitchen which is pretty cold. I personally wouldn't put them in a greenhouse as I would think they'd be too hot in the day and too cold at night

[greenfingers007]

Thanks for the advice will get them moved

[LolaLou]

Mine are in the spare unheated room at home and are all going great (Dark Red Norland so much so that I think I'm going to need to plant them out this weekend and keep them covered from frost or I'll have little plants up there!) but on the flipside my Ambo's are completely uninterested and are only just starting to show any signs of life so they may go in as they are. I'm absolutely no expert but I think you chit the new potatoes to give them a head start and get an early crop and so its not desperately important (althought useful) re main crop (excuse my ignorance if I'm wrong ).

[Creemteez]

Nothing happening with my King Edwards or Pink Fir Apple and they're in trays in exactly the same place as I had last years! Mr Teez wanted to know why I had trays of "dog pooh" sitting by the window in the barn. I suppose PFA are rather unfortunately shaped!

[Paulottie]

Received wisdom is that chitting makes a few days difference to early crops but at the slight expense of yield. (Hence not bothering with maincrops.)

Other chitting advantages include: being able to rub off extra sprouts...giving less larger spuds; Being able to cut your seed spuds up...if your tight; and not having to keep them cool enough not to sprout until needed....so not ending up with spindly palid sprouts that fall off at planting.

Mind you, you could just chuck 'em in early...eg. volunteers always harvest quicker than the planted...but then once they are up you'd have to be vigilant about the frost.

[Greenman]

Wow, what response

Still nothing happening on the chitting front so I reckon it's time to move them. Been in a window sill in an unheated outhouse so maybe I'll move them inside the house and see what a bit of heat does.

[BUFFS]

Wow, what response

Still nothing happening on the chitting front so I reckon it's time to move them. Been in a window sill in an unheated outhouse so maybe I'll move them inside the house and see what a bit of heat does.

i havent chitted mine for some years,i was told it reduces the crop,i put all mine out into tubs today and will cover tops with newspaper for a few weeks,thats presuming this cold weather will ease.....hopefully...

[pjh75]

Just thought I'd share what happens when you put half a bag of rooster potatoes in the bread bin for later and completely forget about them (use by date was 6th Jan)... the dark doesn't seem to have bothered these ones .

OH found them today and asked if I was taking over the kitchen as well as the garden to grow my veg.

[gillian62]

I thought about putting some of my 'charlotte' seed pots into a growing bag and leaving in unheated greenhouse. Would it be advisable to cover them with fleece at night?

[selfraising]

My International Kidney spuds produced a decent amount of shoots but my Pentland Javelin in the same room produced nothing, so both have gone in the ground today!

[SunnyU]

Ok - so here's probably a very daft questions. But my potatoes have (mostly) nicely chitted and I was going to take them to the lottie today to get them in seen as it's the first decent weekend here! Question is - do I cover the potatoes and chits completely and get it all in the ground or are the chitted bits to stick out of the ground????

Thank you!!