Last year my FIL threw some potato scraps into the area where we put our lawn cuttings. Lo and behold we got some potato plants. I didn't pay much attention to them until the later part of the year and there were lots of potatoes under the grass. I had waited too long to harvest them and most were kinda icky looking. I harvested a few but they were green and didn't have a good texture..bleagh.
What time of the year is best for harvesting and as these potatoes are still there under the grass, should I pay more attention to them next summer or are these probably not good ones to eat based on what I found the first time?
Potatoes in grass pile
spuds subjected to light turn green and it makes them bitter. The green is potentialy dangerous to some people. Your green maybe was caused by stain from the grass clippings but I suspect it was light. Spuds grown in soil can stay in the ground for months after the vine dies if its dry ground and not subjected to hard freezing weather which will cause them to rot. Ernie
Next summer after you see blooms on the volunteer plants, reach under the clippings and you might find edible potatoes. You can take a few carefully and cover the rest so the light won't get to them and wait for them to grow some more. I always think it's fun to find something like this that nobody worked to produce. Potatoes have been grown successfully under straw. If you want to try this, lay out some seed potatoes in a patch, cover them with a few inches of straw, and wait. When green plants come up through the straw just add more straw around them so that the forming potatoes don't get a sunburn. You can have a good crop this way with very little work.
I htink the green was the bitter kind.. the potatoes themselves were a bit translucent and didn't have good texture. I didn't know if they were starting to go bad or were well on their way. I have never grown potatoes intentionally and don't know what to expect with them
I planted two crops of potatos last year. The first on St. Pats day as I heard that was a good time to plant. The plants flowered and died back so I harvested those and planted a 2nd crop just to see if I could get some more. These didn't produce as much, but did produce some before my short season ended.
Once you see the flowers you know potatoes have started to grow. The plant will die back on its own and you can leave the tubers under the ground until you need them, or wait about a week or so after the plants are really dead and dig them all up and store them in a cool dark place or in a bucket of sand in an unheated garage.