I am not a country folk,,,so i am pretty stupid when it comes to this stuff,,,,but as a experimant for my kindergarten sons class we put a potatoe with toothpicks in ita side into a cup of water,,and from the eyes on the tater grew these 5 long ( vine-looking things with very small leafs) and in the water a whole bunch of roots. I thought that maybe a nice looking house plant would grow or something,,but these vine looking things just get longer. Since we put these into water,,we transfered to a bigger container 3 different times,,,i AM NOW ABOUT TO PUrchase some soil maybe and just plant it to see what becomes of it,..what do you know,,,,will edible potatoes grow,,,will a nice house plant grow,,,ect... open for any an all answers...thank u

-- maureen mccloskey (msbunnyfly618@hotmail.com), February 11, 2002

Answers

If it is a sweet potato you have grown slips. They can be planted in the ground or in a very large pot and grow more sweet potatoes. Each little eye of the sweet potato will produce another plant. The slips are just cut out of the potato making sure to get the roots too. If it is a white potato you have grown a potato plant, but it won't produce potatoes until you put it in the ground,pot, or cover it with straw or mulch. I would think that a 5 gallon bucket would be plenty big enough. Don't keep it too wet or it will rot. Again...each eye will produce another plant. You can cut the potato into pieces and as long as you get at least a couple of eyes on each piece you will be pretty sure to have at least one plant per piece. Sometimes when I buy my seed potatoes they already have those funny sprouts sticking out of them. Have fun. My children always got a kick out of stuff like that when they were little. We always grew cucumbers in a large pot on the window sill. With the cucs you can help them to pollinate by using a paint brush and dabbing it from flower to flower and playing bumble bee. Great science lesson.

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), February 11, 2002.

sounds like sweet potato to me. Yes, can make nice house plant and also a great "filler" in the flower garden. I find them to be a very attractive plant, although in Michigan we can rarely actually get sweet potatoes from them.

-- diane (gardiacaprines@yahoo.com), February 11, 2002.

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), February 12, 2002.

Jeeze, Sorry about the hic cup! LOL Sweet Potatos are a great deal of fun. Do plant yours in a porous medium for a long lived vine. They are tender to frost, don't like the cold. I used to raise some large aquarium fish(Cichleds) and well before spawning time was near I braced a sweet potato up in one corner of the tanks. Some species would spawn in the roots and the fry of the others that did not, had a nice "jungle" to hide in. And they were pretty too. LQ

-- Little Quacker (carouselxing@juno.com), February 12, 2002.

If was a store bought eating potatoe you may not get much more than these little spindly vines. I am told (they grow a lotta taters here in ND-Honest!) that they are sometimes sprayed with some sort inhibitor so they won't grow a normal plant?

-- Novina in ND (homespun@stellarnet.com), February 12, 2002.

I was told that the inhibitor was for preventing sprouting. IF it sprouts, it should grow some spuds. For a sweet potato to grow another sweet potato they have to have enough room for their stems to send out little root like thingies. A sweet potato is actually an underground stem . The sweet spuds grow from the little rootlet things that grow out of the stems. They can be a foot or more away from the main plant that you started. The irish spuds are all found in a clump right under the main plant. It takes a LOOOOOONG time to grow sweet potatoes. If I remember right...it takes over 100 days. That idea in the fish aquarium is sooo cool! I will try it. I betcha that the thing will love the fishy poo fertilizer and be gorgeous!

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), February 12, 2002.

I've heard potatoes were treated to retard the eyes from sprouting.

Anyway, one year a bag of store bought potatoes (white - Idaho)went soft, so I threw them into the garden intending them to become compost.

Their eyes grew sprouts, so for the heck-of-it I dug a deep trench and put them in. As should be done I filled in the trench as the plants grew. When they finally died at the end of the season, I dug up the spuds, but they were all smaller than a tennis ball.

I don't know if this was due to not fertilizing, or some other cause.

I never grew white potatoes for eating, but I did grow Georgia Jet sweet potatoes from Gurneys for a few years. They are prolific plants - but a real space hog.

Now that I've moved and have more space for my garden, I'm gonna grow them again. Ain't nothing better than a baked sweet potato w/butter.

Now if only I could figure a way to get them to store well.

-- Rudy (rbakker@wcrtc.net), February 12, 2002.

Hey thanks for all the responses guys,,,,but I am not talking about a sweet potatoe,,this was a store bought from a 10 lb bag white baking potatoes. As I said it has 5 long viney looking things growing from it with very small curled up like leaves on ot. and on the part that is in the water there are lots and lots of roots,,,anyone else got some info for me,,,would appreciate it,,,,,,,,,thanks

-- maureen mccloksey (msbunnyfly618@hotmail.com), February 12, 2002.

I think you've just got a regular potato plant that probably isn't getting enough light, so it's growing long an spindly. If you want to try growing potatoes, follow the above advice for planting in soil, but make sure it gets lots of sun and some fertilizer. If the vine is really long, you could cut off the end, and it will branch and look a bit better.

-- Katherine in KY (KyKatherine@Yahoo.com), February 12, 2002.

Stick it in a five gallon bucket making sure that all of the roots are covered and so is the spud. I wouldn't try cutting it up at this point because you will end up with a mess. Keep it watered, but not wet! Make sure that you put something in the bottom for drainage like rocks or broken pieces of a flower pot or something.....then put it by a window. It needs more light and some soil. You also need to occasionally put a liquid fertilizer on it or some fishy poo stuff. I water my plants from the fish pond out back and they love it. You can trim the ends off a little from the stringy things, but don't whack them off too drastically. The plant needs them for photosynthesis and if those leaves are as tiny as you say they are they need to get lots more sunlight.

-- Nan (davidl41@ipa.net), February 15, 2002.