Chitting potatoes on the windowsill
The seed potatoes arrived from the site shop last weekend: a bag of Charlotte for salads and a smaller one of Pink Fir Apple, because they look like ginger roots and taste better than anything you can buy.
They're now standing in egg boxes on the spare room windowsill, rose end up (the end with the most eyes). It's the coolest bright room in the house, which is what they want: light enough for short, stubby green shoots, cool enough that they don't go long and pale.
Does it matter?
Every February someone on the allotment forum points out that trials show chitting makes little difference to yield for maincrops. For earlies it gives you a head start of a week or two, and that's what I'm after with the Charlotte. The Pink Fir Apple I chit because they're so slow anyway.
Planting will be early April, under fleece if the nights are still cold. Last year's lesson about May frosts applies to potatoes too, so the fleece is staying where I can find it.