seed potatoes

[pea]

hello , im a bit new to this grow your own and have had my own allottment for a year.I need a bit of help with seed potatoes as the shops have them now but i will not be able to plant them untill march when my plot drys a bit. If I buy them now how do i stop them sprouting until im ready??If i let them chit right away they will be able to walk away come planting time.Any advice is urgent thanks PEA .

[oldherbaceous]

Dear Pea, a very warm welcome to the forum.

Regarding your seed potatoes, the best situation is a cool, light, and frost free position. This will allow strong dark green shoots to appear ready for planting time.
I keep mine in a greenhouse with just enough heat to keep the frost out.

Even the seed in the garden centers often have long thin shoots growing through the nets come March, where they have been kept to warm.

I placed my early seed potatoes in trays ready for chitting this Saturday.

[John]

Hello Pea
I agree with OH - somewhere cool (frost-free) and in full light is the best place. Don't leave them in the bags though but set them out either in seed trays or better still egg boxes with the eyes facing upwards.
What you want to avoid is long straggly shoots forming as the tubers then become difficult to plant out without breaking the brittle shoots.
If you want to try for some really early earlies then chit a few in the warmth, like the kitchen window sill, and plant out eventually under cloches or fleece.

John

[alan refail]

Hi Pea

Total agreement with Old Herbaceous and John. Get the seed potatoes now, keep them as they suggest - light and cool (frost free) and they'll be just ready to race away at the end of March.

[Monika]

If you have an unheated greenhouse, Pea, they will do fine there as long as you can take them into the house when it is likely to freeze. Chitting them in egg boxes or egg trays is good because you can then stand them up with the 'eyes' at the top. And if you keep the boxes/trays in larger boxes, you can just carry those into the house temporarily when necessary.

[pea]

Cannot thank you all enough for my warm welcome,and all of your advice. I have bought my potatoes and put them in a freinds garage in a box for the moment. I am hoping to move them into my mums unheated greenhouse next week, I will keep you up to date with my progress as I have no doubt that I will be in need of much further help in the future thanks again Pea.

[Mike Vogel]

Just take care of cold nights in an unheated greenhouse, pea. I had some dahlias coming on brilliantly in one a year or so ago and then forgot to lok at their progress during a few frosty nights. The early shoots had all died. Spuds are semi-tropical in origin, so will not like very cold nights. It might be a good idea to bring them in on that sort of night and stick them out again in the morning.

The other problem, though, is that it can get too hot in there on a sunny day. I would try to find a place in shade where you can leave the chitting spuds on a cool but sunny day.

Good luck

mike

Never throw anything away.

[pump_king]

My seed potatoes have been chitting since the 5th of Jan, they have been on a table in my living room next to a window that faces north(keeps it cool) also I only use seed stock from http://www.alanromans.com ,as what he does not know about potatoes ain't worth knowing. he may not be the cheapest place to by from but his seed potatoes are always quality

[Phil S]

I have three variertys of potato chitting, pink fir apple, duke of york and arron pilot, can i plant out all three under plastic to get early crops of each I know that PFA is a late/main crop but wold starting som of in the round at this time give me early crops

[Marge]

Is it absolutely essential to chit potatoes?

[Mike Vogel]

I think the idea of chitting, Marge, is that you want to mimic the development of the tuber under its natural conditions. Remember, the potato is semi-tropical, so by now in its natural habitat it would be beginning to produce shoots under the warming soil. Our soil is not warming yet, so simply planting them out now will not produce the shoots when you want them. The planted tuber wil just sit there shivering or may be eaten by iggly-bugglies [technical term, that].

However, some will survive and produce a crop. But late. If you want earlies to be early, you need to do something to help them. Hence chitting.

Maincrop spuds do not need chitting, as you are not hoping for an early crop. But it helps to get them started.

While chitting, the Organic people recommend an occasional spray with a liquid seaweed feed called SM3. Good luck anyhow to you and pea, who started all this.

mike

[JohnN]

Hi, Marge
Having noted your suffix, which I think is Spanish for Queen of the Kitchen (or cooks?). I must relate what happened when lunching in Spain with friends, who included two Spanish ladies, in trad black, who didn't speak English. I tried to show off by asking one of them in Spanish 'Are you a cook?'. I got the 'Are you' bit OK, but then used the word 'cochina' instead of 'cocina'. The ladies looked furious, my bi-lingual friends collapsed in hysterics and spluttered the information that I had just asked her if the was a pigsty!
Hope this gives you a smile, John N.

[stimpy_mo]

Hi All - Do I plant all my seed pots at the same time or at set times depending on the type - such as ultra early - late main crop etc - as i would like to know and none of the books seem to say - thanks in advance

[Mike Vogel]

I think that depends, Stimpy-mo, on when you want to eat what kind of crop.

Bearing in mind that first earlies take about 75 days from planting to be ready, earlies 90, 2nd earlies [incl. the commonest salad spuds]120, maincrop 150 and late main 170 [i.e six months, give or take], you can organise things so that you are eating "earlies" in May, if you plant them under fleece in warmed-up soil in mid-March, or in August, if you delay planting the seed spud till the end of May [not easy!]. I plant some maincrop very early, to get them dug up at the end of August, and others later, so that I'm digging them in October.

That method seems to work well in theory, but seldom in practice, because:

1. It sometimes gets very dry and hot in Bedford, and the maincrop varieties accelerate to maturity, as I don't have much time to water them as well as everything else - and water on my allotment is sometimes in short supply - and the growth withers well before the theoretical date; and

2. By October the slugs, wireworm, etc have wreked havock on anything the blight has left behind. One is recommended to get the spouds all dug up by the end of August to avoid slug damage. Having said that, I found my Sarpo Mira and Pink Fir Apple, both "late maincrop" surviving well into October, which this year wasn't anything like as wet and boggy as usual [we did wet and boggy in the summer last year].

So my answer to your query is to stagger the sowings, but in general you should sow at least some of the laincrop as early as conditions allow, and stagger the earlies to get a succession between May and August. We may be finding that as our climate has become warmer, the time to maturity can be reduced by as much as a month for the later varieties.

Confused even more? Good luck

mike

[stimpy_mo]

Thanks Mike [ i think] - if the spuds mature at different times and bearing in mind this is my first go at growing spuds-
what you seem to be saying is if i plant all at one time i will be digging up spuds over a long period ?
-please say YES as this seems the easy option for me - i will be planting some spuds in containers which i will keep in my greenhouse for a time until things warm up - regards