My grandma used to let me help her plant potatoes. She would cut up her seed potatoes but she always told me we had to leave a good chunk of the potato and that’s what feeds the new plant. I’m thinking that’s not quite true!
This year, we have potatoes coming up in every single bed and even in the grow bags where I didn’t plant potatoes. I only planted potatoes this year in grow bags. A couple of the raised beds have had potatoes in them previously so at first I figured maybe I had left a few potatoes in the ground and they sprouted. Then potatoes started popping up in the new bed where the rhubarb is growing.
Yesterday I noticed potatoes popping up in the asparagus bed. That bed is the first bed Vince built when he was here before we even moved in because we wanted to get the asparagus started. There’s no way we ever grew potatoes in that bed.
Then potatoes started popping up in grow bags that were brand new. They had never had anything planted in them so it isn’t like I stuck plants in the bags of dirt where potatoes grew last year.
I think I’ve figured it out – I bought 150 pounds of potatoes from Azure Standard this past year. Some of my veggie peelings go into the compost bin and some of the veggie scraps from the kitchen got buried into the raised beds. I had no idea that potato peelings with almost zero potato left on them would sprout but that is the only thing I can come up with.
I buried a lot of veggie scraps and turned the soil in those beds over several times. Then when it was time to plant in the bags, I pulled some of the soil out of the beds because it was rich and full of worms, added that to the garden soil and peat from bags and that’s what I used in the bags. Apparently, all the beds are now full of seed potatoes. I had also buried some scraps in the asparagus bed.
No more potato peelings in my compost!
Paula Nordt says
I throw my potato peelings, tomato scraps, lettuce, etc. on top of my beds as top compost. I don’t turn the dirt over and have never had potatoes sprout from them. Maybe my earthworms eat them, or the possum. Now when I’ve tossed old whole potatoes out, yes, those have put out roots and tops.
judy.blog@gmail.com says
I have never had it happen either but this year, there are potatoes in every bag, every bucket, every raised bed – if I’ve added dirt . . there are potatoes growing. I guess if they all make, potatoes will be like zucchini with me trying to give them away.