today is the day for planting your seed potatoes

[cremolafoam]

so says my grandad.St. patricks day is spud planting day.
i am off to dig a trench

[TheDuchyEggOfNorksBride]

Sod it! I haven't dug over last years veg patches yet.

[iamdingdong]

oh I knew I was meant to have done it by now - but to be fair it was snowing here today and yesterday, so I'm sure they can wait another few days

[BroccoliSpears]

Should I already have chitted?
What IS chitting?
I was about to start a thread asking if I can start my spuds in a barrel this weekend. Can I?

[throckenholt]

chitting is laying them out in a light place to let the shoots start to grow.

But you can still plant them even without chitting - or even if they have sprouted like mad in the bag - just bung them in - spuds are almost impossible not to grow IME.

[callmeovercautious]

Put the spuds in an old egg carton in a light place. They will wrinkle a bit and start to grow green tips where the "eyes" are. Once these tips are showing plant them about 20cm down in some decent compost with the side little shoots/tips pointing up.

[BroccoliSpears]

And the killer question... can I use some spuds from sainsbos or do I need garden centre ones?

[throckenholt]

you can plant any spuds - but sometimes I think supermarket ones are sprayed with something to stop them sprouting.

[sophy]

No you cannot use any old spuds. You need to use special seed potatos which will be guaranteed free of blight.

Also then you can choose the best varieties.

[throckenholt]

you can use any spuds (any will grow as long as they don't have a sprout retardent chemical on them).

But it if you are going to go to the effort of growing your own then it makes more sense to grow the nicer less commercial ones - which are not the ones you get in the supermarket.

Unless you are going to grow loads then you probably will still have to buy more from the supermarket anyway. So make the ones you grow fun - try different varieties - see which ones you like.

My tip - don't grow main crop - we always get blight (regardless of which seed potatoes we use) in July so never have any chance of getting a September harvest so main crop never stand a chance here.

[Pixel]

You can cut the seed potatoes up as well to make them go further, as long as each piece you plant has a shoot on it.