Kitchen Garden Forum

One of our allotment neighbours (a newbie gardener) bought her seed potatoes about a fortnight ago, put them in a drawer in their paper bag in a cool(ish) room. On taking them out yesterday to put them out to chit, they had already formed long white shoots which had probably already started before the purchase. It's obviously far too early to plant them (they have no greenhouse) so she was going to take off all the shoots, hoping the potatoes will produce new ones.

Now, I don't think the potatoes will produce completely new shoots - so what should she do? Throw them away and start again?

A problem that is oh so common

Placed in a drawer, wrapped in a paper bag, is hardly going to be the coolest place.
Nor will they be helped by the fact the shops are already selling seed potatoes that are shooting. Our local branch of Wilko's had spuds on the shelf the other day with 2 inch+ shoots. Needless to say we left them for some other poor sap to purchase

I would look carefully at each potato and knock off the longest shoots, if there are any eyes with no shoot yet knock off all the long shoots and wait for the eyes to form.,
Put the potatoes in trays, not touching each other so air can flow round as much as possible. for the time being find the coolest dark place they can.

Keep an eye on them as they may find the spuds now want to send out weak shoots again

Each potato only needs a couple of good strong shoots anyway, early spuds don't really need chitting.