Mark,

It sounds like those potatoes were kept too warm and dark at the
garden centre. You really want very short stubby sprouts as the long
ones are easily broken off when you plant them.

Early potatoes mature fairly early on in the season - they are ready
to harvest as soon as the flowers are fully open. Here in Glasgow I
won't put them in until the end of the month at the soonest, but you'd
need to ask someone local to you for planting dates.

HTH.

Lorna


"Mark Allison" wrote in message ...
Hi,

I'm having my first go at planting potatoes and I bought some seed potatoes
from my local Frosts garden centre. The potatoes already have 6 inch sprouts
on them - should I plant them out now? On the packet it says they're
Earlies - not sure what that means. Is there a FAQ anywhere that shows you
how to grow spuds?