Any ideas?

Thanks,

Scot

Do you use the method of continuous covering of the shoots with more and more dirt as they grow upwards?

The reason for cutting seed potatoes is not horticultural, its economic -- its to reduce the cost of seed per area planted. A large potato can be cut into several smaller pieces. Taken to the extreme, some mail order nurseries sell little plugs from around an eye. I personally dislike the entire practice -- cutting does increase the risk of rot and loss, albeit not by much when done properly. But, I also think that the smaller the piece, the weaker the resulting plant. Once again, this is a fairly arguable point, and there are many other factors involved aside from the size of the seed piece.

My preference is to pick out seed potatoes that are a "medium" sized example of their variety - not the smallest, wimpy ones and not the large ones that need to be cut. Since the feed stores where I get seed potatoes offer them for sale in bulk bins, its easy to pick through there and select the size I want. I also got lucky this year and found a large quantity of dirt cheap grocery store sprouted potatoes that I used for seed -- these were very large potatoes, but I planted whole to avoid rot and because the price wasn't a factor -- they were 10 cents a pound on the clearance rack of the produce department, so I could afford to plant whole.

For the backyard gardener, cutting makes very little sense, there is only a few dollars worth of product, chuck them in there whole and stand back and prepare to be blessed ;-)

Watch my "Hilling" video for the answers to your other questions, I address those concerns as well as "a picture is worth a thousand words"

I always plant mine with small eye sprouts & have never had a problem.

Seems the rabbits have had a change of taste buds. They've pruned almost every one of my taters, a few days after they had their leaves up. In all the years I've planted taters, I've never had anything even attempt to eat them. I, for sure, never thought a rabbit would, but...I caught it, red handed. The ones that it hasn't gotten, I've put a cage around. I go out twice a day to see if any of the pruned ones have poked thru the soil, again...NOPE!