Chitting potatoes... have mine gone too far?

[rocket]

Hello,

I bought some potatoes a few weeks agos and only just got around to dealing with them this weekend - they've been kept in the mesh bag they came in and although the potatoes themselves look fine the 'shoots' have grown quite long on some of them.

On the instructions it states to chit them for up to 6 weeks or until the shoots have reached 1.5 to 2cm. But some of the shoots on mine are 15 to 20cm long already and I haven't even started chitting them properly yet!

Does this mean these are useless and I should throw them? Or will they still be ok to plant? If they're ok, should I trim the shoots back to a couple of cm or leave them as they are? If I leave them, how should I plant the potatoes? With the shoots sticking out of the soil, or try and bury them as much as I can?

Thanks

[malcolmx]

chittig is just a method of getting potatoes to start into growth earlier to give a better crop . i would place in egg boxes with shoots uppermost and spray lightly with a very dilute liquid fertilizer .after shoots have become a little tougher and ground is warmer sow into holes in ground use a slug repellent around shoots and cover by hand so as not to damage shoots sow about 4inches below surface . if you have heavy clay ground put a little grit or sand at bottom of hole so it is not sitting in water holes in clay soil can act like pots and hold water

[rocket]

Thanks Malcolmx,

So what should I do with the great long tube things coming out of the potatoes? Are they not really shoots? Should I get rid of them before I sow the seed potatoes, or just trim them down a bit? Some of them are really long and straggley! Sorry, i'm a bit of a beginner at this so you might need to treat me like a complete philistine, i wont be offended!

[malcolmx]

no these are the shoots you need to save. they are the arms that will have the potatoes on just try not to break them off when you sow the potatoes we all had to learn ask me all the questions you need

[Quorlia]

Last year I planted potatoes (in gro-bag type things) with really long straggly bits mainly because I had no idea what I was doing. Then everytime I saw green I stuck more soil on top until I couldn't keep up with the plants anymore! Worked fine but maybe it was beginners luck

[Nicola_D]

It's my first time growing potatoes too this year and mine did exactly the same thing, I even struggled to get some of them out of the mesh bags as the shoots had grown through the holes! I don't think my shoots were as long as yours though. I left them in egg boxes in the kitchen for a few weeks and some of the shoots got to about 10cm long. I've read various things, some people think you should cut long shoots off completely to encourage new ones and some say to jplant them and ust cover the shoots with soil carefully to prevent damage. So i've planted mine with the long shoots and I'll see what happens. fingers crossed

Nicola.