Say what?!? Chitting potatoes? What’s that? Exactly my thoughts two years ago.
It sounded so weird…and I even looked it up in the dictionary…CHIT…TO CHIT…CHITTING…nothing!!! {that made gardening sense}
Whatever. My gardening books say you should “chit“ potatoes before planting…
which simply means to stand them upright in a warm and dark place with the eyes (buds) pointing upwards.
Supposedly potatoes that have been chitted will grow much faster than unchitted ones after planting. OK…got that.
Yesterday I bought some Yukon Gold and Norland Red potato “seeds” {oh here’s another term…seed potatoes…ones which have eyes growing}
Last year I was able to buy smaller seed potatoes…this year some of them are huge…
so I put them in egg cartons with spacing between them ‘cause they’re so big.
I do need to mention that you can’t just buy regular potatoes at Safeway or wherever…stores treat potatoes with something to prevent eyes growing. You will need to buy “seed” potatoes from a nursery or feed store.
Here I’ve put my seed potatoes on the top of a freezer in the barn. It’s warmish but not too dark. It should be dark.
So I’ve put on a shade screen to keep them “darkish”…and they’ll be ready to plant in 2-4 weeks. NIghty night potatoes.
Flash back to last year…here is a photo from from May 2013 of my seed potatoes being planted in two 4 x 8 beds…and all summer I regretted the space they took up. Many gardeners say not to even ever plant potatoes…’cause they’re cheap enough at the store.
But IMHO…I wanna know how to grow ’em!
This year {um…like in a few weeks} I’m gonna have Mr. Denim make two of these:
http://info.irisheyesgardenseeds.com/index.php/grow-100-lb-of-potatoes-4sqft
I’ll post soon about making them…and if they’re worth the effort. You never know until you do it!
Happy weekend!
Learn something new every day! Great post! Poor Mr. Denim and all the work he has to do…:)