My next door neighbor threw out a ten pound bag because it was sprouting out and she thought of my garden here. I took em and cut out enough slips for the first tire stack , sliced up enough for hash browns with onions for dinner and knocked the eyes off the rest and put em in the bin for more browns and tire stacks. Sure am glad more folks don't think like us :>)

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), March 14, 2002

Answers

About the middle of last summer my husband took about a half bushel of wilted potatoes and threw them in the woods. This happens to be the section of woods next to my yard that I'been clearing since last summer. Instead of removing the rotting potatoes I put a big pile of straw on them and have left them alone. I recently peeked down in the straw and saw several tiny potatoes. I love taking something someone throws away and getting more use out of it.

-- Sheila in NC (nannie@intrstar.net), March 14, 2002.

Good for you Jay. It's always good to get something useful from something that someone else is throwing out. It's even better when it's something you'd have needed anyway.

-- Murray in ME (lkdmfarm@megalink.net), March 14, 2002.

I found it hard to believe someone would throw out good firm potatoes just because some eyes were sprouting out. In my time I have wittled down taters a lot worse than those to get the "nugget in the center" :>)

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

HEHE I do that too!

-- Novina in ND (homespun@stellarnet.com), March 15, 2002.

This sounds like wonderful economy, BUT BEWARE that potato table stock carries all sorts of viruses. Here in Montana we have many potato seed stock growers who can't risk getting contaminated (the viruses tend to stay in the soil almost forever), so we are forbidden to import uncertified seed stock and to plant table stock in order to keep them out -- especially the early blight virus. If you want to be sure to keep your garden clean and if your state has any kind of potato growers, I'd feed these finds to the animals instead of planting them.

-- Marcia in MT (marciabundi@myexcel.com), March 15, 2002.

Little do these folks remember the good old days every spring I would get to go to the cave and sprout potatoes we always put a wagon load of good old spuds in the cave in the fall and every spring they sprouted but we still needed food on the table. So we set and sprouted spuds and put them in the side of the cave that the ben was empty of potatoes. Then come good old planting time, we sat and cut potatoes with the eyes for planting and getting about 6-7 hills out of each potatoe with sprouts. my father pulled the old horse planter down the rows and mother threw in a potatoe for planting to each row, taking two rows at a time. sure was a good time in life. In the fall then he took the plow and plowed out the potatoes and we went behind with 5 gallon buckets and picked up the spuds and put them in the waiting wagon. Then got the wagon home and unloaded 5 gallon buckets of spuds to the cave. Thanks for the memories Glenda L. Heywood http://www.nationalpoultrynews.com

-- GLHeywood (frizzlebird@yahoo.com), March 15, 2002.

yeah , life is good, i have always grown potatoes in straw bales, i just assumed it was how it was done , cause that was what we did on the farm as a kid :)

its great to go out there 4th of july and open up the bale and early harvest a few potpatoes and not kill the plan , then come back in fall and voila , no digging(cept maybe a tiny bit in the dirt), and nice "clean" potatoes....

trick is , to lay the tatters down on semi hard ground, before putting the bales or 2 ft of loose straw over them, otherwise they will just grow into the ground, defeating the whole purpose!

-- Beth Van Stiphout (willosnake@hotmail.com), March 19, 2002.