Potato Chitting

No, that's not a typo - this is the third in my grow your own series - Potato chitting is one of those things that some grow-your-own types like and others don't. Remember the last lot of potatoes you bought, stuck in a cupboard and forgot about? Well chitting is the same kind of thing. The potato starts growing in the nice cool windowsill you've got, then you can transplant outside.

You'll need:

1) Potatoes - not just any though!
2) egg box
3) windowsill
4) 'special knowledge' (you'll get that in a minute...)

Step 1 Buying the potatoes

This is bizarrely an important step - why? That's because normal store bought potatoes will usually be OK, but may possibly contain disease you don't want to put into your soil. Use 'seed' potatoes from the local nursery or seed store and you can guarantee they will be virus free. That's not to say that the soil you're putting them in is disease free, but at least they'll have a fighting chance.

You can pick them up fairly cheaply from a good shop - mine here cost £2 from the local nursery

More importantly is that you can often pick up varieties of potato not usually available or even endangered or rare plants - though often these are sold as actual plants rather than the rare and valuable tubers.

Comments

[DeanGPotts]

i seem to have bought some pre chitted tatoes, 6 in a bag that are soon to be burried, was going to eat them.

[jadler-1]

so help this dummy out. Seriously, once they're "chitted", to the "chits" go UP when you put them in the ground? Or are those "roots" per say, and they go down?
Sorry if it seems like a dumb question!

[tim_n]

Chits go up :)

[jadler-1]

thank you!

[cowscankill]

Wait... Why do I want to chit a potato? If I cut apart a potato and I plant the chits seperately, will they all grow into full potatos?

[tim_n]

yes you can! In war time England under the grow your own campaign people would chit, then peel the skin off and plant each bud so they could use the potato for eating!

[cowscankill]

Awesome! Wait... do the peels grow back into full potatoes? Or do they like collect the seeds then plant the se--.... Hmm.. I am confused by the life cycle of a potato.

[Arano]

a potato becomes the crop and then on the roots new potatoes are growing... you can find that 'mother' potato when you harvest the new potatos but in most cases you don't want to find find it ;) the potato is mostly consumed in the early stage of growing in the early year; most of that energy is used to grow upwards through the earth in the search of light, because when it reches the light the crop can produce sugar for further growing....

[gw812]

Question - heard once that you can cut up the potato once it has chitted and plant each chit with a piece of potato attached separately. True?

[awang8]

You can cut the potato in to as many pieces as you want, but only the pieces with eyes on them can be grown. Save the rest for compost!

[tim_n]

you can in fact go one step further and use potato peelings to grow potatoes. A practice common in the dig for victory era during the second world war in britain! Just make sure the chunk or peeling has an 'eye' to start growth.

[SpinWard]

I remember when I learned this word, I pulled an old potato from beneath the cabinet and said, "Look mom, I chit a potato." She made me get the dictionary or I was going to be in big trouble. Great instructable. I'm trying to plan my garden for next year and my husband requested potatoes! Thanks!

[devilwyrm]

where i am from we call those the chits eyes

[tim_n]

Indeed - the 'eye' is from whence the chit comes - the sprout is the chit. The act of purposely letting them sprout is called chitting.

[tim_n]

I've uploaded a better final pic of a chitted potato.

[tim_n]

Ooops! Amended! 4-6 weeks - or it can be a week.

[technodude92]

about how long does it take for a potato to chit (lol) a whole other one?