Poorly chicken

[TESSANN]

Hi, I am new to this growing vegetables stuff and was wondering about chitting potatoes.

 

I have read that to chit them, place in a light, warm spot, but I thought putting spuds in the light turned them green.

 

Not sure what to do now, any advice would be great.

 

Thanks

 

Rosemary

[Strepsy]

There seems to be a lot of debate lately about whether it's even worth chitting potatoes but I chitted my few this year. I just popped them in an egg box with the eyes facing upwards and left them in the kitchen. Not in a particularly bright spot but light enough I guess. It doesn't matter if they go green now as you're not going to eat them.

[Christian]

I'm sure that Monty Don did an experiment on Gardeners World, where some potatoes were chitted and others weren't. No difference in the final crop!!

 

Mine are sitting in an egg box in the shed by the window. Will plant them when I get a chance. Chitted last year, but they don't seem to want to this year

[chickencam]

We have always chitted ours in the past but last year they just didn't sprout, so this year we decided to not chit them. So far we have planted our 2 early varieties which had been in the paper bag in which we bought them for a couple of months and they had long weak pale stalks some of which broke off as we got them out. Time will tell as to whether this makes any difference to the final crop I suspect that it won't because if you are storing them and break off the stalks they re-grow and if they catch the frost a little they also re-grow.

 

We were hoping to get the main crop in this coming weekend but yet again they are forcasting a wash out again

[Egluntyne]

There was something on the radio about it the other day.

 

Experiments had shown that it made not a hap'orth of difference apparently.

[Eyren]

I chitted mine this year because, like chickencam's, they had already started to sprout in storage and I thought they would be better with short green shoots than long pale ones!

 

In future I won't bother if they're not sprouting by themselves...

[chickencam]

I think we should have just taken them out of their bags and left them spread out somewhere lightish, that is propably what we will do ext year

[Richard]

There was something on the radio about it the other day.

 

Experiments had shown that it made not a hap'orth of difference apparently.

 

You shouldn't believe all you hear on the radio. Potatoes need to be chitted because, well because thats what you have to do.

 

People have always chitted potatoes. If you get folk going off, not chitting their potatoes, there's no knowing what they'll do next. The world wouldn't be in the state it is today - global warming, illegal immigrants, asylum seekers, Zimbabwe, President Bush, Terminal 5 etc. and all the other ills of the world - if people stuck to the traditional ways of doing things.

 

Potatoes need chitting and thats all there is to it. Can you imagine what would happen if people just put their potatoes straight into the ground without having them in egg boxes on the windowsill for weeks in the spring? There would be anarchy? People would start thinking for themselves and questioning the traditional ways of doing things and, well, not doing things properly.

 

No difference? Wash your mouth out with soap young lady!

[Chicken Licken]

(hiding and ready to run away) Apparently commercial growers do not chit their potatoes .......BUT the good news is that I did!! I also had a long debate as to whether you should trim off aome of the shoots of the chitted potatoes to make the growth stronger in the remaining ones (I didn't do this - a step too far for the poor potatoes - they must have evolved over millions of years to crop as they do!)

 

I guess now it is a bit late for the chitting debate - go on be a devil and plant em.

 

Also how can I use the egg boxes for chitting if I need the egg boxes for eggs? Conveniently the girls have had a break from laying to allow the spuds to chit