seed potatos

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I know that with seed potatos you have to cut off the pieces with eyes, and then let the little chunks cure in the open air for a couple days before planting. I did this, and now have a whole pile of leftover potato pieces without eyes. Is this all waste, or can I plant the eyeless chunks, too?

-- Shannon at Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary (gratacres@aol.com), April 16, 2002

Answers

mashed potatoes hash browns french fries potato soup

-- Rose (open_rose@hotmail.com), April 16, 2002.

The eye of the potato is the part which sprouts. Normally, when we cut seed potatoes, we leave the chunks as food for the emerging sprout. If you planted JUST eyes with no food at all, you may want to start over. Sorry.

-- mary (mlg@mlg.com), April 16, 2002.

I did that once. The potatoes still produced, but not that well. I got maybe 6 to 10 potatoes per hill. But I didn't feed them or pile more dirt on them or even weed them. Waste not want not :)

-- Paul (rpm44@centurytel.net), April 16, 2002.

At most we cut them in half, drop in the hole. Never cured them?

Your way might work too.

The sprouts only come from the eyes, the parts without eye that you have left is food storage to feed the eyes until they come out. IF your potatoes were not treated you could have used that part for eating, but MANY potatoes sold as seed potatoes are treated & are not safe to eat.

--->Paul

-- paul (ramblerplm@hotmail.com), April 16, 2002.


I never buy "seed potatoes". I have three paper bags that I use to cut eyes out when cooking and drop them in the appropriate bag (red,idaho or irish). When I get enough, I plant an "Irish Lazy Turf Bed".

-- Jay Blair in N. AL (jayblair678@yahoo.com), April 16, 2002.


Around here they usually start selling seed potatos around the first of Febuary. Way too early for me to plant, but if I don't buy them when they first come out I will miss out on them. So I buy them then and they usually don't have any eyes protruding yet. I place them in the pantry closet and just let them set until the first of April and by then they usually have lots of distinguishable eyes. I usually end up using the whole potato. Each peice I slice off will have at least two eyes protruding. I then let them dry for two days before planting.

-- r.h. in okla. (rhays@sstelco.com), April 16, 2002.

I cut mine up into chunks with at least two eyes, too. I drop them into some sort of container as I cut them. When they are all cut up, I sprinkle on some flour and mix them up so the flour coats the cut places. Then I go ahead and plant them, no need to dry. I seldom have even one that doesn't come up.

-- Gayle in KY (gayleannesmith@yahoo.com), April 16, 2002.

We only plant certified seed potatoes, because table potatoes can carry disease -- notably, early and late blight. Planting the infected seed then infects your garden, and the diseases are very hard on the plant and cut production considerably. Besides, we have a very large seed potato industry here in Montana, and if their fields become infected because someone let in infected seed, a sizeable chunk of our state economy is affected. Really, it's better not to plant any but certified seed potatoes.

-- Marcia in MT (marciabundi@myexcel.com), April 17, 2002.

Shannon, try to cut the certified seed potatos in pieces that include two eyes if you can, but leave as much of the potato as possible to feed the eyes. Seed potatos are grown at an altitude (my addled brain doesn't remember what that altitutude is) to insure that they are free from blight. This is the same blight that caused the potato famine in Ireland where thousands starved and many of the rest were faced with starvation or immigrate. Luckily the U S received many of the those immigrants. Otherwise there'd just be us Native Americans, Blacks, Women, Gays, and other People who think with their hearts, not they're bank accounts to insure that the average person in the United States is represented.

-- Dennis Enyart (westwoodcaprine@yahoo.com), April 18, 2002.

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