You can plant the whole tuber. After all, that's the way it grows in nature. No limit of eyes per tuber.

In a bucket you can plant equivalent of one hill; that is about 3 pieces.

About cutting: each piece sould have about 2-3 eyes. If your seeds are small(size of a jumbo egg or smaller) do not cut tem. If they are the size of a small/medium apple, cut them in halves such that each half has atleast 2 eyes.

More eyes will translate into more stems comming up. You can always pinch off the excess of say 4 stems from each seed.Do don't want too much foliage.
Place your 3 seeds in the bucket such that they are equally spaced and are about 2.5 inches away from the wall.

I would fill the bucket to less than half, put the seeds down, cover with 2-3 inches.
Later on you keep fillin the bucket as potatoes keep growing.
Remember that tubers will grow above the seed and roots will grow below the seeds.
So then 1/2 for roots and 1/2 for the tubers.

Yes either way - cut or not cut - works. But you get many more "seeds" to plant and many more potatoes if you cut them as most do.

And yes, if you are using a 5 gallon bucket then it is the equivalent of 1 potato hill or 2-3 pieces. Good planting instructions from Cyrus above.

Dave

I plant the scraps from making stew and the pots grow! Keep them in bags for a couple months in winter. Pull them out of the root cellar and plant them in April.

{{gwi:34398}}

That is the most amazing result from stew that I've ever seen! It inspired me to tell you my story--I hope you don't mind.

I ordered "seed" potato sets from Burpee...Very excited--my first time after 30 years of gardening!

I'm planting in an old garage spot where the cement was busted out about 20 years ago, leaving pure, compacted clay soil here in MO. In St. Louis heat it was brick-like! But for the whole time I've been adding cardboard, leaves, even several phone books that are long gone! Compost, straw, a few attempted gardens--no luck. BUT. Still I kept enriching constantly. Wood chips. Long vanished, but I know their goodness is there! I just love to create great soil! (sometimes I fear, more than the gardening itself!)

Now I'm going to try growing potatoes in a straw and compost layering method that I read about. I'll leave the big rich sides of the garage garden as is. I'll lay the seed potatoes on the existing dirt/mulch in a 4' wide swathe in the middle fo easy reaching (and because the middle is where the sun is!), and cover it with straw mulch mixed with my side compost. It should be RICH.

Then--as needed, when a few inches grow up---I'll rake up compost from the sides and mix with straw and cover several more inches and so on.

I'll do this over and over and over....I hope....and the story is that I'm going to be able to reach into the enriched but still light straw and take out small potatoes. Or big ones, later. Or----????

I DON'T KNOW! What an adventure!!!!!!!

Can ya tell I'm excited? If it works, I'll post pictures here of the steps as I go through--if anybody wishes.

But wait! I am new and can't find the info on putting up pics. Yours, keepitlow, is the best photo I've seen in my first 2 weeks back here since years ago.

Happy gardening!

Paula

P.S. If anyone has tips on my idea, or HORROR stories!--I wanna hear them all!!