It’s a little early now, but soon we will be dispatching seed potatoes for you to start chitting at home before you plant them out.
We dispatch the majority of our seed potatoes in February and March. Chitting your seed potatoes will encourage lots of shoots to appear before you plant them which in turn will lead to a bigger crop. It’s very easy to do and is best done about 4-6 weeks before you want to plant them, so February and March is ideal so that you can plant out in early spring.
Here’s how to chit them:
- Put the seed potatoes into an opened egg box, one in each space with any small shoots (or knobbly bits that look like they might soon become shoots) that you can see pointing upwards.
- Place the egg box with the seed potatoes in a light, cool place for a little while. A windowsill will do the trick.
- In a few weeks the shoots will have grown quite a lot and your potato will look a bit alien.
- When the weather warms up a bit you can plant them out ready to dig up loads of potatoes a few weeks later.
If you order your potatoes a little later in the season and they arrive in April/May, you don’t need to chit them. You can just pop them straight in the ground – the soil will be warmer by then so they will grow quite quickly and you will still get a good yield.