Are You Chitting Your Tatties Yet?

[Bigmallly]

I wouldn't normally chit maincrop but I found a bag of King Teds that had small sprouts so have laid them out to chit, they are coming along nicely. Have you started yours yet?

[bramble]

Yes I am. Bought them yesterday and laid them out on a sheet of lining from an apple box in the conservatory.
Having said that, I also have some salad potatoes chitting in the cold greenhouse and they are doing well. I bought them at Christmas and they were not used up so I left them outdoors and now they are sprouting as well so I will plant these in containers later in the year.

[WPG]

Yes, mine arrived yesterday...they're now in egg boxes on a cold windowsill, and will probably stay there till April.

[veggiechicken]

I have some Jazzy chitting and some leftover Marfona which I shall bung in - that's a technical term, y'know

[sparrow100]

Yep, am fully in the chitting party. Alouette & PFA have been at it since December, Charlottes and Lady Christls are just joining them. Can't wait!

[Penellype]

I bought some Lady Christl and Charlotte at the beginning of January and they have been chitting in a vegetable rack on my cloakroom windowsill ever since. I will get Desiree and Sarpo Mira shortly and they will be put to chit in the utility room - I just have to finish eating the tomatoes so that I have space.

[Greenleaves]

Won't start mine till Feb, that said I didn't bother last year and found no difference in cropping in terms of cropping time and quanity

[Cadalot]

I said to myself don't buy potatoes early and do all that chitting, I failed completely when I visited Wyevale to look at their sale, and bought a bag of Estima and will be collecting the chitting mushroom trays lined with egg boxes from the allotment on the weekend.

I'm sure it makes little difference but it has to be done.

[Bigmallly]

Great, I'm glad I'm not the only one to start. I was thinking it was a little early.

[Bren In Pots]

I buy mine from the local corn merchant so just waiting until they have stock.

[alldigging]

I've had a tub of small spuds in the bottom of the fridge for .. oo can't even remember when, but they're out in daylight now, so technically yes.

[sparrow100]

I said to myself don't buy potatoes early and do all that chitting, I failed completely when I visited Wyevale to look at their sale, and bought a bag of Estima and will be collecting the chitting mushroom trays lined with egg boxes from the allotment on the weekend.

I'm sure it makes little difference but it has to be done.

Savari Trust (the people who invented the Sarpo spud ranges) say that chitting is important for their varieties because they are bred to have a long dormancy and this breaks it earlier. Planting their varieties without chitting will delay tuber formation by up to 4 weeks and will dramatically reduce yields. Kilfi is apparently the variety with the longest dormancy.

(they replied to someone's tweet about why they never bother chitting any more - thought this might be a useful nugget)

[Penellype]

I've noticed that of all the varieties I have tried, Sarpo Mira is by far the slowest to start sprouting and takes the longest to chit.

[burnie]

Well I wasn't till I read this, now have some of last years Kings Teds and PFA in egg boxes.

[Baldy]

I've noticed that on this forum a lot of grapes use supermarket potatoes or similar leftovers. When I frequented some other forum the advice was always to avoid doing that and always use proper seed potatoes to help avoid disease. A chap from the 'Potatoe Board' (summat like that) would often appear on such threads...

Just sayin'