Can you plant potatoes from the shop??

[PepiPootles]

Hi, is it ok to plant potatoes that are bought from the shop instead of seed potatoes? What will the difference be? I read somewhere that you shouldn't do this, but why??

[Snadger]

Frowned upon by many because of spreading disease/virus! Some shop bought potatoes are treated to stop them sprouting anyway, appaerntly!

I am as guilty as anyone though of using shop bought spuds (my dear old dad used nothing else!) but I do buy quite a few seed spuds as well!

For instance, I found a small bag of Charlotte potaoes wedged behind the car seat where they had fallen out of the weekly shop! They were well shooted by the time I found them so I thought "what the heck" and planted them in buckets.
I now have buckets and tubs with 9 inches of early potato foliage in the greenhouse and am looking forward to my early windfall which cost nowt!

PS The added bonus of growing them in tubs is because they are self contained there is no risk from soil polution if the worst should happen!

[Glasshousevirgin]

Guilty also (prompted by Snadgers success tho).
I have put a few of last years Accent potatoes in the ground as they were well sprouted in the kitchen drawer and not that good an eating proposition.
They are now appearing above ground and I await the results.

[zazen999]

guilty as well; found a couple in the bag that were really sprouted; cut the sprouts off [still ate the spuds] and planted; now about 6 inches high and need earthing up.

[goldwolf]

I too planted some farm bought potato 2 year ago, after waiting 4 weeks i dug in to find they had not sprouted.
I think they may have been sprayed to stop them sprouting.