seems a bit early to me hank to have spuds chitting i may be confused do you live in cheshire or have you moved somewhere warmer permanently,the idea of chitting is to give them a quick start but avoid them seeing daylight before the frost in early spring at a rough guess 1"long would suffice or shorter ,chitting is not a must do but it speeds things along by a few weeks

I'd not set them out until you get back to the UK - otherwise the regular visit to the US for watering and earthing up will be hard work...

Somebody told me today that the whole of the States were covered with snow, even California and Florida. Apparently this was wrong???? I thought it was a bit hard to believe.

I guess I've misled you guys, sorry. I'm here in San Diego at my daughter's for 3 months, and I've forgotten all about Cheshire except for some Winter lettuce my son is attending to in the greenhouse.
The weather here is very hot - far better than our "Summer" and her spuds are chitting nicely.
She says they're not ready to put in yet but I'd have put them by now. I just wondered who was correct.