potato sprouts are too long?

Hello from a total beginner! I have decided to grow potatoes this year (among other veggies), which I have never tried before. I bought some potato seeds from Wilkinson's today. These are some maincrop seeds, which look fine, and 1st earlies. The 1st earlies already have sprouts which are a couple of inches long. At the beginning I thought this was a good thing, but when I started going through this forum I found out this is probably not the case :( So my question is: What should I do with these seeds? Do they stand a chance to grow into normal plants? Since they are ready for planting, should I plant them in pots inside the house and then plant them outside in March? Any advice will be appreciated!

 

Thank you for the swift reply! I have placed them in my egg boxes on my windowsill, so they should get plenty of sunlight. When should I plant them? How long should I wait?

 

I planted my 1st earlies in a bag in the polytunnel last week. They too had pale long shoots but I planted them gently to avoid damage and they should be just fine. Did the same last year and ended up with a nice early crop.

 

Sorry about the missing info, I will fill in my profile as soon as I can. I live in London, so it's usually warmer than most parts of the country. I think I will plant them in small bags and keep them indoors an then transfer them outdoors in a few weeks.

 

I thought I would use food bags and make some holes for drainage. Do you think in one month they will get so big that they won't have enough space in there? Please let me know what you think and I'll try to find bigger bags.

 

You'll need much bigger bags tolennaki...you'd be better with some old compost bags or strong bags of that size...you can roll the sides down and just put about 6 inches of compost in the bottom place the potatoe in and carefully cover it with a few more inches of compost until they start to grow through,then when they reach about 8 inches roll the sides of the bag up and add more compost leaving the last few leaves showing and keep repeating until you get to the top... ....the bags will need to be strong enough to take the weight when moving to where you want them and will be heavy

 

We bought a couple of potato grow bags in our local Pound Shop last year and they are perfect for the job. Another type or bag we've used are strong rubble sacks from Tesco, though these are no quite the same capacity.
The T&M website has useful info about growing potatoes in containers and you can see the size of the 'sacks' which should give you an idea about the size you really need.
In the past I've just planted one layer and earthed up as they grow, but this year I'm trying two layers (as per the T&M illustrations) and have filled the bag to the top with compost.

http://www.thompson-morgan.com/how-to-grow-potatoes-in-bags.

 

Thank you all for the advice. Do you think it would be possible for me to plant them in smaller plastic bags indoors and then, when I transfer them outside in March, to remove those with my scissors (carefully, so that the compost stays in its place around the roots) and plant them in proper big bags? It would be easier to have the smaller bags inside the house but I wouldn't do that if you think it's too risky, of course!

 

Hehehe, nothing sounds too obvious for a beginner!

 

I know you'll probably skin me for saying this, but I got some seed potatoes last year, and they got sent out really early, I put them somewhere that I thought was cool, but when I got them out the sprouts were about 40cm in length! Because they were still in the net bags, most of the long sprouts came off, and I kept just the shorter ones, and commenced chitting once again in the greenhouse, turned out the potatoes just grew new sprouts, and when it came to harvesting there were mounts of spuds! So I'd say, potatoes are tough cookies, and I wouldn't worry too much about knocking the odd one off.

 

I've done that the year Homebase gave away all their remaining seed spuds and onion setts when it was getting too late to plant them. The yield was mediocre, but they were planted out very late (end June/early July?) into un-prepared ground. I just couldn't resist the offer of something that was free (my favourite price).