You serious gardeners are now receiving the seed potatoes you ordered, trying to assuage cabin fever, in January. As soon as they arrive, take them out and place them where they will receive indirect light. We are after a process called chitting, where your "seed" potato begins to sprout.

In two weeks time, you will have the beginnings of sprouts. When you put your potato in the ground, there should be sprouts ¼ to ¾" long. Longer than that and it is difficult to keep from loosing your chitting advantage that enhances the vigor of your seed potato. If you do break sprouts off you will delay emergence of the vines. Along with that you will increase greatly the number of vines that finally emerge from each potato, greatly reducing the ultimate size of the potatoes that you will harvest. But, if you care for smaller individual potatoes, this could be a way to make them happen.

All tubers the size of a hen's egg (1-3 oz.), may be planted whole. Ones this size are highly desirable. Professional potato growers call these "single drops." It is good to know that the larger the seed piece the larger the crop, both in terms of size of individual potatoes and overall yield. On the other hand, the larger the seed pieces used, the more seed it takes to plant a given area. At minimum, however each piece should weigh at least 2 - 4 ounces and must contain two or more strong eyes. With the chitting process you pretty much know the vigor of a seed piece when you put it into the soil.

CHITTING OR PRE-SPROUTIIIING: The practise of greening and pre-sprouting seed potatoes before planting them encourages early growth and hastens the development of marketable tubers.

The method is simple: spread the seed tubers in open-top crates, boxes or flats, one layer deep with the "seed end" uppermost. (If you look closely at a seed potato, you'll notice that one end was connected to the root and the other end has a large number of eyes from which the sprouts emerge. This end with the eye cluster is called the seed end.) The flats are kept in a warm place (70 F.) where light levels are medium in intensity (bright shade). The warmth stimulates the development of strong sprouts from the bud eye clusters, which, in the presence of the light, remain stubby and so are not easily broken off.

Usually seed potatoes are greened up starting a week or two before planting.  Do not cut the seed before greening it up. It will dry out. Cut it just before planting. Often growers dust newly-cut pieces with fungicide to guard against scab or reduce the threat of infection by bacteria or fungus. Organic gardeners may use powered sulfur, placing a teaspoon or two in a large paper sack and gently tossing the cut potato pieces to cover them with sulfur dust.