If the potatoes you are looking to purchase have started to sprout already, the foliage type sprouting is the chitting you will encourage, so they should be OK. However the white spindly type shoots are not what you want, so leave the potatoes with them on the shelf. Try to buy varieties that suit your soil, and some are better than others at disease resistance, scab resistance or less likely to suffer from slug damage. So if you know that your plot has any of these problems try to pick a variety to grow that is less prone to suffering from the problem. Neighbours on the next door plot can sometimes offer useful advice on this.
When you go to buy seed potatoes you may notice that the prices in different shops vary for what looks like a similar bag of seed potatoes. The old saying you get what you pay for can be true in the case of buying potatoes to grow, this year I have bought Scottish seed potatoes form a proper supplier. last year some of my potatoes were purchased from a shop that stocks 'a bit of everything stacked high and sold cheaply'. I cannot blame them for the amount I harvested being down on the previous year, as even the ones of better make and quality did not fare as well as the previous year because of the late start ( cold weather into late spring) and then a lack of rain at a vital point in the growing time. However I am only buying and chitting ones that I have a bit more confidence in this year.
When buying potatoes to grow you need to remember that the crop you get will depend not only on the soil they grow in, the weather and the conditions being good but also how much 'potential' is stored up in the potato that is going to do all that work of pushing up foliage and producing your new crop of potatoes.
When you go to buy seed potatoes you may notice that the prices in different shops vary for what looks like a similar bag of seed potatoes. The old saying you get what you pay for can be true in the case of buying potatoes to grow, this year I have bought Scottish seed potatoes form a proper supplier. last year some of my potatoes were purchased from a shop that stocks 'a bit of everything stacked high and sold cheaply'. I cannot blame them for the amount I harvested being down on the previous year, as even the ones of better make and quality did not fare as well as the previous year because of the late start ( cold weather into late spring) and then a lack of rain at a vital point in the growing time. However I am only buying and chitting ones that I have a bit more confidence in this year.
When buying potatoes to grow you need to remember that the crop you get will depend not only on the soil they grow in, the weather and the conditions being good but also how much 'potential' is stored up in the potato that is going to do all that work of pushing up foliage and producing your new crop of potatoes.
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