Having a chit time

This morning we had a long discussion about whether or not we should chit our seed potatoes. Sophia the disappointed Swede (not that kind) had read somewhere that this is a waste of time. Our allotment books seem to be divided on the subject. And it's completely pointless looking on the web for this sort of info, as you only seem to find the opinions of complete zealots of either persuasion (this is of course a general phenomenon, not constrained merely to potato-related dilemmas).

In the end we decided that perhaps we should find out what chitting is first. Turns out that it's just standing potatoes up in a tray of some sort to encourage them to form sprouts. It's a form of premature aging, so that you get your crops faster. Well, you learn something every day.

We eventually decided to chit our two early crops - according to one of our books, this is good for earlies, but mains are best left to their own devices. Apparently we can then expect fewer potatoes, but they'll be larger. Sounds good to me.

After all this discussion and research, it was a bit of an anti-climax when the actual operation itself took about a minute to perform. Next up: find out when we should be planting this lot.