Potato advice

[pumpkin cuddler]

Hi there
Please could someone tell me if I am correct in thinking that when I plant out my chitted potatoes. If the potatoes are big and I have little shoots coming from two sides that I can cut the potato in half.
I am sure that I did read this somewhere but am not sure what the procedure is.
If I do cut the potato in half do I have put anything on the wound, (not a plaster) to stop it from rotting.
Has anyone done this and can anyone give me advice one the subject please.

[supersprout]

No one answer to this!
Yes - you can cut if you want more plants.
Tubers may be a tad smaller.
Don't cut till you are at the plot and planting in a month or so.
If it's warm enough to grow, the spuds will fight off most infections.

[Earthbabe]

Thanks SS - I was going to say that yes it can be done and was used a lot by very frugal gardeners but does increase the risk of infection in the tubers.

[la cebolla grande]

Yes, cut the tubers for a larger crop - as long as each one has a decent bud/shoot, and the soil is warm enough you should be fine.

Apparently in WW2. potatoes were grown from peelings - again as long as they have a decent bud on it can be done.

Don't let them get too wet before the shoots appear above ground though, otherwise rotting can be a problem. Once the green leaves are out the plant no longer needs the 'parent' tuber, so they very quickly make up for not having a whole tuber to start. In theory your yield shouldn't even be significantly reduced - and of course you will have lots of extra plants anyway!

[Two_Sheds]

I got my first crop of taters from peelings left in the compost heap. Lovely taters they were too.

[Earthbabe]

Mr EB has banned the shrivelled, sprouted left over new pots from the compost bin on the basis that we will have potatoes growing in the compost bin. Drat, rumbled again!

[SueA]

I seem to remember Bob Flowerdew grows his spuds from little pieces, I think he cuts them into sections & waits until the sprouts are growing O.K.on each before planting out.

[*Feather*]

I hadn't thought about this for years, but I actually remember my gran cutting the seed potatoes as she planted them. I don't know whether each piece of spud had a sprout or not, I wasn't really interested at the time... I must have been about eight!