Posted: Thu Feb 24, 05 9:27 am Post subject: Preparing chitted potatoes...
Hello all,
Here I am with my first question on here...
I am chitting my early new potatoes on the window sill in the new babies room (he would be proud ) and have now got several good sprouts coming from each seed.
My question is regarding thinning them out, sonme books recommend leaving all the growth, others say to keep just the strongest sprout, and others say keep one or two...
How many sprouts do you tend to leave...???
Thanks in advance,
Jeff
Tristan
Joined: 29 Dec 2004 Posts: 392 Location: North Gloucestershire
Posted: Thu Feb 24, 05 9:36 am Post subject:
Hi Jeff
Two shoots on most potatoes is fine, just leaving one means it is bound to get damaged (law of sod). Pink Fir Apple potatoes will take more shoots, as will some of the early salad varieties, as you want lots of small spuds on those types.
They tend to say fewer sprouts for bigger potatoes, leave them on for more, but smaller potatoes.
How much difference it makes, have not experimented, we don't tend to rub them off unless there are some pointing downwards (and it probably doesn't make much difference if you leave those on). We get a reasonable mix of sizes doing it that way so if you have a preference for big or small it might be worth following the instructions.
You'll get as many answers as there are people growing spuds.
I'm a two to thee eye man myself; I like hte idea that if one breaks there'll be another. But then sometimes I'm so lazy I don't even chit the spuds. Last year the few spuds I planted has more eyes on, and I seemed to get smaller spuds and lots of them.
I am referring to my early new potatoes here (Maris Bard) an will want a lot of smaller potatoes so will leave all the shoots on I think...
For my main crop potato I am growing Kerrs Pink and will probably want slightly bigger spuds an will therefore leave just two or three shoots to mature... Saying that I understand that chitting is not as needed on main crops as it is earlies...
If you've got too many eyes then yes, you can cut them in two. Some people like to let the cut end dry out before planting in that case.
There's a joke in there somewhere!
Treacodactyl Downsizer Moderator
Joined: 28 Oct 2004 Posts: 25795 Location: Jumping on the bandwagon of opportunism
Posted: Sat Feb 26, 05 8:29 am Post subject:
We've tried this. When you get your seed spuds you can look over the large ones and cut in half or even smaller. Make sure each piece has an eye on it. We left the cut spuds to then chit and the cut surfaces dried and healed.
They only problem is that we end up having too many seed pototoes anyway.
) and have now got several good sprouts coming from each seed.
There's a joke in there somewhere!
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