I do not put ads on my blog but do have a counter that shows me how many visits the pages get. (The stats. count is just there so I can see if I am 'talking' to myself, luckily so far this has not happened.) By continuing your visit here you are consenting to the stats. counter tracking cookies. Cookies, that sounds like something nice to eat but not that exciting.

Growing Your Own Fruit and Vegetables

We grow our own fruit and vegetables for our meals for as much of the year as we can. Without a greenhouse we have to buy shop food in the winter months but in the spring, summer and autumn we often have enough to share with family and friends.

Read about growing your fruit and vegetables here on my growing your own food pages.

Sunday 28 March 2010

How Many Chits should I have on my Seed Potatoes ?

The most important thing is that the chits that your seed potatoes have formed are sturdy green shoots and not straggly thin white ones.  The straggly thin white ones form when the seed potatoes lack light or are too warm.

Once your potatoes start to form chits you will see that some of them produce more than others. Some people believe in is a good idea to restrict the number of chits developing on the seed potato.

I do not bother as I do not like to cut into the potato and risk spoiling it, others think the number of shoots should be restricted - mixed bag of opinions really.

If you leave less shoots you may get larger potatoes but as first earlies are new potatoes and smaller ones are nice I do not see the point. Maybe experiment by restricting the number of shoots on a few of the main crops that you will leave to develop for baked potato sized spuds.

If you are not sure about chitting potatoes here are three links with useful advice :

BBC gardenersworld video - potatoes-chitting.

How-To-Chit-Potatoes

Potato-Chits-What-Should-they-look-like

Here is a link to how to plant your seed potatoes...
BBC Gardeners World.How-to plant seed potatoes - planting.


Happy planting.

a healthy potato plant in flower

a healthy potato plant in flower
photo of potatoes in flower

home grown carrots.. grown from seed

home grown carrots.. grown from seed
photo of my first bunch of carrots 2009

Even a small batch of mixed fruit can be useful

Even a small batch of mixed fruit can be useful
Home Grown Fruit can be made into delicious compote