Hello all: New at starting a garden here. I wanted to plant some potatoes; the person at home depot told me to put toothpicks in a potato, wait till they sprout, and then plant them. Is this true? And if so,
Thanks everyone!
Greg
il Wed, 7 Apr 2004 12:34:59 -0700, "Greg" ha scritto:
Sounds like he's confusing potatoes with avocado kernals. Put a seed potato in light, it will start to sprout from the eyes. It can be subdivided but potatoes are cheap. So when sprouted a bit, plant it but leave the green bits in the light.
One can also use any old potato to grow from. 'Eyes' are the dark bits on a potato. Mine sprout if I keep them too long in the cupboard.
Same here... So do my onions. I keep them in the bottom of the 'frige now.
I never used to buy seed potatoes when I grew them. I liked the gold and red vareties from the grocery store.
I can't eat potatoes anymore so I don't grow them. :-( Am considering planting some yams tho' just because the vines are so pretty!
I've heard that they are in the morning glory family. Is that true?
K.
FWIW- my new potatoes (red) have just broken ground here in NC. :)
Craig
That's a sweet potato. It will work with a sweet potato. It won't work with an Irish (or white, or regular) potato, as far as I know. Better to buy seed potatoes at a nursery or garden center.
Sweet potato: suspend a sweet potato in a glass or jar of water, pointy end up, with about half of the sweet potato in the water and about half out of the water. You can suspend it by toothpicks (which tend to break) or nails (which works well).
The sweet potato will get sprouts - shoots - all over the half that's not in the water. There will be quite a few of them. When each shoot has some leaves and is ...oh...[shrugs] maybe six inches long, you can twist it off the sweet potato and plant it in the ground AFTER ALL DANGER OF FROST IS PAST AND THE GROUND IS WARM.
Even so, you're not going to know what variety of sweet potato will be growing and maybe it wouldn't be suited to your area. You'd be better off to buy small sweet potato plants - these are called 'slips' - of a variety which might do well in your area.
Alternatively, you can plant the whole affair in a large pot and have a pretty vining house plant, or a pretty vine for your front porch in summer. It wants a sunny location, of course. And this won't produce you any sweet potatoes.
Pat
PS - you'd be much better off getting a couple of basic books on gardening at your local library, rather than listening to the person at Home Depot.
I recommend 'Square Foot Gardening' by Mel Bartholomew. If you read his book, also see his website for some updates, one of which is important and makes things much easier.
Many many people leap into gardening without learning or reading about it first, then of course, they usually have discouraging results and quit. Such a shame! Reading even ONE basic book about gardening can save you a lot of wasted time, effort, and money.
Pat
Thanks everyone for the great advice!
il Wed, 07 Apr 2004 21:08:36 -0500, Katra ha scritto:
No room in mine for such an easy storer.
Yeah, not sure what the difference is between a 'seed' potato and any old one that's sprouted.
Not a clue. Morning Glory - isn't that convulvulous? a rampant pesty weed here.
il Thu, 08 Apr 2004 11:45:00 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@meadows.pair.com ha scritto:
An 'irish' potato?? They come from the americas...
;-)
I've had to keep onions in the 'frige! Dad tends to forget we have plenty, and buys more. I just hate throwing food away... :-(
Same here!
Hee! Bindweed. Yah, but the wild morning glory seeds have value on ebay. To those in the know, they contain LSA's.
K.
il Fri, 09 Apr 2004 00:01:52 -0500, Katra ha scritto:
LSA's?? I'm obviously not in the know.
Lysergic Acid Amides...
Funny, it was my mom that told me about those many years ago one day when we were discussing drugs back when I was in high school. She was teaching me what to avoid. :-) Good mom.
The legislature briefly considered outlawing morning glories in gardens sometime back in the 70's.
Obviously it was decided that it was impractical.
K.
I know. Nevertheless, we in the USA often call them 'Irish potatoes' to distinguish them from 'sweet potatoes' (_Ipomoea batatas_) which are much used here.
After all, the Irish have been known to eat a few potatoes, just occasionally. :)
I doubt that what we call 'French toast' actually comes from France either. It's good though.
[Digression] My husband (who is British) had never heard of 'French toast' until moving to the USA. In case you don't know what it is either, and are curious - it's a breakfast or brunch food, usually.Beat an egg or two or three with a fork. Stir in a few drops of vanilla or almond extract or both, and a couple of teaspoons of sugar. Pour it into a flat type of pan. Put slices of white bread in the egg mixture and allow them to remain there for a few minutes, so some of the egg mixture soaks into the bread. Saute the bread in oil or melted butter until nicely golden with brown flecks, turn, and repeat for the second side.
(I generally eat 100% wholewheat bread, but - to my way of thinking - it doesn't work for French toast. I use white bread for French toast - or French bread or Italian bread sometimes.)
Serve hot. We usually serve it with a little butter and some maple syrup (a little warmed honey could substitute).
Instead of maple syrup, it's also very nice with a pat or two of butter, a couple of sprinkles of lemon juice, then sprinkled with confectioner's sugar (icing sugar). [End digression]
Pat
Your husband probably knows it as "eggy bread" That's what we call it.
Steve
Just asked him: Yep. :)
Pat
And, if I'm not mistaken, back in the 1500's it was known as "pain perdue" in England.
Scoop
il Fri, 09 Apr 2004 01:50:16 -0500, Katra ha scritto:
Too true, I can't imagine convulvulous taking any notice of regulations. They'd just laugh as they undermined the garden soil... As for letting them flower and fruit! One would have to be mad. ;-)
il Fri, 09 Apr 2004 10:32:27 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@meadows.pair.com ha scritto:
Hmm, we call our sweet potatoes 'kumara' and ordinary potatoes just 'potatoes'
As does the whole world now. Although rice is making a resurgence.
--snip--
We used to have it as kids in Australia, but added milk to the eggs. We knew it as French toast from my father (also English)
The French have a really revolting habit (to my taste) of dunking and leaving old hard bread into the morning large cup of cafe latte and then eating the soggy mass with a spoon. I've adopted the cafe latte for breakfast but no way am I ever going to eat totally soggy toast from a mug!
Like wholemeal pasta (a crime).
Perhaps you'd like curried toast? Put curry paste on toast and cut into fingers. Leave out the chafing dish, I don't think it's so necessary despite what Mrs Beeton says. :-)
Especially the wild variety that grows all over here in Texas. ;-)
I weeded a BUNCH of it out last year prior to it blooming 'cause I did not want it in the tomato plants again...... and it's back in full force this year.
K.
On 08 Apr 2004 13:17:27 +1200, "Loki" wrote:
Piggyback ride...
poking holes in potatoes and putting them in water will most likely get you the foulest stinking mess you ever smelled!
Potatoes will grow all by themselves, no water necessary at first, the potato plant makes the tubers to provide food for the plant that will grow from it until it's established.
Best way is to get seed potatoes about the size of a hen's egg or a bit smaller, and "chit" them.. put them in a flat with the "rose" end of the potato up.. rose end is the one with the larger cluster of "eyes" and leave the potatoes in a bright area that is neither too hot or cold enough to freeze them. They will develop dark green short sprouts, rather than those ghostly white ones that develop when the potatoes start sprouting in the dark. They will sprout when the potatoes reach a temperature.. I *think* it was over 40°f, but might be 50°f. Once the seed potatoes have a nice cluster of dark green buds/sprouts that haven't actually leafed out too much, plant them in a trench or hole, sprout end up, or wherever you want to plant them, and cover them with an inch or two of soil. Enough to protect them from any late frosts (Good Friday is a date that many people use to guide them in when they should have their potatoes in the ground in zone 6 anyway). As the potato grows, and leaves appear, cover them with a bit more soil, and keep doing that until the trench or hole is filled, and then .. as they grow above ground hoe the soil from either side of the plant inward to "hill" them up .. leaving a small rosette of leaves protruding from the top of the hill. Do that about 3 times up until the plant starts forming flower buds I think.. check on that it's been a long time. You can also mulch the hills after you've finished hoeing the soil up to make sure it remains moist .. and also keeps erosion down and will cover any tubers that might protrude , in the shade. Green potatoes are bitter, and poisonous.. containing solanin.. Solenacea or Solinacea .. I think one might be spelled right.. being the family name. They are in the nightshade family..as are Tomatoes, and eggplants.
Just keep in mind, potatoes will not form tubers any deeper than the seed potato is planted. I've read articles about them being grown in old otherwise work out galvanized trash cans, tires (didn't work well for me just using a lot of mulch, as I have flood irrigation, needs more soil with the mulch and watering methods other than flooding.) I have some mounds of dirt in my yard from when I had someone dig out trenches of clay loam in order to replace it with sandy soil and peat moss, in order to plant blue berries. I need to get some more granulated sulfur out there, and more peat and other acidic products out there for mulch as my native soil is alkaline to "neutral" depending on where it is in the yard. Might use a post hole digger to spike the mound with seed potatoes and fill the holes as they grow, water the mound with a sprinkler and mulch it with grass clippings from the lawn around it, just to see if I can do it, as well as get some kennebeck potatoes! Maybe a few pontiacs or whatever looks good that can be had for seed.
You can cut up a larger potato, leaving an eye or two on each chunk, however, you'll get fewer, but larger potatoes that way. You'll likely bet more, but smaller ones with the whole small seed potato. That can be somewhat balanced out by rubbing all but a few of the largest sprouts off .. just before planting it. You have less chance of the seed potato rotting if it's a small whole one. If you go with cutting a large potato up .. make sure there's a good chunk of potato with each eye, and let them set around to dry awhile. .8 to 12 hours.
Ok... I've rattled on far too long.. happy potato planting.. oh.. almost forgot. Only potato growing in water that I know of is to take a sweet potato or "yam" (just a moister more orange variety of sweet potato really.. yam is a perennial tropical tuber that is irregularly shaped and grows about 3 feet deep) .. put the sweet potato into a jar where part of it is poking down into the water.. without toothpicks.. just make sure the jar mouth is small enough to keep the entire potato from falling in (or a big enough sweet potato). It will grow roots, and sprout up pretty leaves and grow a nice vine for ornamental oddity indoors, or you can break off the sprouts very close to the tuber when they have several leaves and stem that can then be "rooted" and then planted out in relatively poor soil, sandy preferably. Rich soil will just grow more vine. If you're interested in that, there are more folks who know more about it than me!
So NOW.. b'bye ;-)
Janice
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