What's the scoop on potatoes?

I am in Florida, so I'm supposed to plant potatoes in the fall (now through Oct.). Yet every site I go to to buy seeds says they are sold out and won't ship them again until the Spring. Then I read somewhere that you can buy potatoes at the grocery store and get them to sprout and then plant them...I'm so confused. Can someone explain all this to me in layman's terms?....why can't I find seeds to buy until spring? and do I even need seeds if I can just sprout a potato on my own?....how exactly do you sprout a potato?

Thanks for putting up with my confusion :)

Passiflora: I don't think you should buy potatoes from the grocery store, they have probably been treated. Can you get to a farmer's market? You might find some untreated ones there.

Hi Passaflora,

Here is a place that says they are shipping now. There is a space in the shopping cart area to put in ASAP to have them shipped to you now. They have lots of neat varieties and their prices are reasonable. You can give them a call to be sure: 970-641-5634

http://www.milkranch.com/potato/Garden.aspx

Actually, potatoes from your supermarket will grow. Because they have been treated to prevent sprouting, they don't grow really well. But if they wouldn't grow, you wouldn't have them sprouting in your kitchen.

Good luck,

Karen

If you want to use supermarket potatoes, go organic. They're untreated, and should sprout nicely.

huh... my supermarket potatoes are always sprouting like crazy. what do I do with the sprouts?

I plant organic potatoes from the grocery store. I just plant the whole potatoe. If you leave them in the plastic bag, in the house, they will develop nice sprouts and roots.

lcosden:

You can break the sprouts off, and using the pointy-end of your potato peeler or the end of a paring knife cut out the end of the sprout that is left, then cook and eat the potato. I've read here that you have to throw the potatoes away if they sprout. Not so. I've been eating them all my life after they sprouted and I'm still here. I've never yet heard of anyone even getting sick from them. We were too poor to throw away potatoes just because they sprouted.

Or you can plant them and have more potatoes.

Karen

Karen, how do you plant the sprouts though?? There are usually several sprouts per potatoe. Do we cut the sprouts apart and plant them separately? Are the sprouts leaves or roots? Cuz I've never seen roots just that weird shoot emerge out..

lcosden,

If your potatoes are already sprouted, you just plant the whole potato that way. The sprouts are the start of the vines that grow above the ground. The eyes that you place downward will form roots. I've never seen roots form on sprouted potatoes while they were still unplanted. If you place the potatoes in the ground with some of the sprouts downward, don't worry about it. The potato will figure it out.

If they were not sprouted, you would cut the potatoes up, leaving two or more eyes on each piece. You would wait a couple of days until the cuts had callused over, and then plant the pieces.

Seed potatoes are small potatoes and you plant the whole thing.

The new crop of potatoes will grow on the roots that are formed underground. They are tubers. Plant them as deep as you feel like digging for them. In other words, maybe six or eight inches down in a trench with an inch of dirt on top. Then as the sprouts (vines) grow up through the dirt, keep adding more dirt until your trench is filled in. My grandmother always planted her potatoes down about 12-14 inches, but she used a plow to dig them up. She didn't have to dig them up with a hand shovel. They are ready to dig when the vines begin to die back. You can dig a couple up to see if they have grown as big as you want them to be. If not, you can keep watering them and leave them a while longer.

I recently observed my neighbor throw out a lot of nursery pots, so I went over to retrieve them after he left. In digging around in there, I also found a whole box of seed potatoes that had sprouted. These were expensive, boutique-type, certified organic seed potatoes. Must have been $100 worth. I dug them out and planted a whole bunch of them. They are coming up fine. Since I only planted them about 6 inches deep, I'll not get that many, but what the heck -- they were free.

I recently found out from Farmerdill that sweet potatoes are different. With them you put the sweet potato upright, with one end in a jar of water, wait for it to grow sprouts several inches long on the top, break off these sprouts and plant them. He explained that sweet potatoes are roots, not tubers like Irish potatoes.

Hope this helps,

Karen

Karen, that's awesome.. Thanks for being so thorough with your explanations. I will plant all the sprouts then.. I always get sprouts on the last few in the bags.. I've never gotten sprouts on my sweet potatoes and yams thoughh.. Might try that though cuz I love sweet potatoes and yams.. Thanks again for the info.

lcosden,

On your Irish potatoes, don't take the sprouts off and plant them. Plant the whole potato with the sprouts still attached. As mentioned above in this thread, if you have organic potatoes they will grow better because they have not been treated to resist sprouting. However, regular ones will work, just not as well, if that's what you have. Clearly, from your experience, you can see that the anti-sprouting treatment doesn't work completely.

On sweet potatoes, you do take the sprouts off and plant just the sprouts with several of the nodes (where it looks as if leaves will form if left alone) down in the soil. Sprouting sweet potatoes in a jar is a project a lot of children do because it is very easy, and you get fast results. I think all the yams in this country are also sweet potatoes. I don't believe that real yams will grow here, and I don't believe they are ever imported from South America either.

Take care,

Karen

Karen,

Thanks so much for all the wonderful info! I was really confused about potatoes, but now I feel a lot better about them :)

For the sweet potatoes, how do you plant the sprouts? Do you just break off the part that is coming off the potato? Do you plant the entire sprout underground or leave some of it above the soil? How much of it goes underground?

This is a tiny bit off subject, but you know the ornamental sweet potato vines you can buy that are purple and spread like crazy? Do those produce edible potatoes as well? I have them popping up all over the place in my yard!

Stephanie

Sweetpotatoes are planted in the spring. They like hot weather.

You can break the 5 and 6 inch sprouts off. If you put them into a container of an inch and a half of water, they will quickly develop roots and will transplant a lot better. You plant them about 3 inches deep preferably in a ridge several inches high....unless your soil is very sandy..

Sweetpotatoes started outdoors in sand will develop roots on the sprouts.

Stephanie,

See the post from Indy about planting the sweet potato slips. As Indy stated, sweet potatoes require hot weather to grow and so in most areas are planted in late spring. Irish potatoes like the weather to be cooler so they are planted early spring or in the fall. However, check with your county ag agent. It may be that your area of FL is hot enough to grow them later in the year.

I had not thought of eating the ornamental sweet potatoes. I did find two posts from Farmerdill about them, though. He states that while they are edible in that they won't poison you if you eat them, they don't taste very good. They were developed to have pretty vines rather than to make good tasting sweet potatoes.

Karen