Help help! Potatoes!
Return to DiscussionsSo on a whim I bought some potatoes from Home Depot or Lowes and put four in the ground not really expecting anything and lo and behold I have 4 little plants growing!
Its been about two weeks and we are getting good rain.
Any pointers to grow them - I'm very excited to get the chance (perhaps) to eat some freshly grown!
The only thing I have had to do is make sure that when the potatoes start forming, that they stay covered. If they grow out of the ground cover, they will turn green and hard. I read that you shouldn't eat the green parts, but I don't know for sure. The potato plants grow pretty fast and large, so weeds aren't usually a problem. It is fun at the end of the season to dig them up. It's like finding a buried treasure!
The new potatoes grow vertically up from the stem of the potato that you planted. Keep covering them with soil or compost as the tops grow. Any potato that is allowed to get above ground will turn green and the whole potato is poisonous (no, you just can't cut the green portion off). Watch out for the Colorado Potato Beetle - it can decimate a crop pretty quick.