Sprouted potatoes

[Kaede maple]

A potato on the counter beagn to sprout so i figured id throw it in the garden. And wouldnt you know it the plant produced a bunch of them. My question is are these buggars safe to eat.

 

[Tetters]

Welcome to the forum @Kaede maple. They will be safe to eat as long as they have not turned green. Your newly grown potatoes need to be kept in the dark.

 

[Islander77]

During the War when food was scarce, they would plant just the skin of a sprouted potato, rather than the hole thing. It apparently worked well .

 

[Tetters]

It certainly did work, I can remember my grannie saving the thick potato peelings, and grandad planting them in the back yard. He also used to soak peas in paraffin before planting them - he said the mice wouldn`t dig them up and eat them then ...they didn`t like the taste of paraffin

 

[Meadowlark]

Yes, they will sprout....but production from planting just the sprouting peeling compared to the whole and/or cut seed potatoes is only a small fraction.

My experiments show that one is much better off in terms of available edible potato to plant the whole and/or cut seed rather than plant the skin only and eat the rest. What you are eating is actually your future production.....and that is never smart.

 

[Tetters]

Couldn`t agree more @Meadowlark - trouble was, back then grandad had no option. I`m talking about the times when grannie would cook a great big wedge of suet pud and feed 13 kids with it for dinner. She would slice the suet roll into the right number of bits and put a little gravy on it - that was the only food of the day - unless there was enough suet roll left to put a bit of jam on for pudding

 

[Islander77]

Couldn`t agree more @Meadowlark - trouble was, back then grandad had no option. I`m talking about the times when grannie would cook a great big wedge of suet pud and feed 13 kids with it for dinner. She would slice the suet roll into the right number of bits and put a little gravy on it - that was the only food of the day - unless there was enough suet roll left to put a bit of jam on for pudding

Thank you and yes a different world and that is how folk survived. We are blessed indeed. I was a war baby and it was all so different then and never any wasted food. So we never take food for granted. Never scorn the old ways. I am in Ireland, land of the potato famine. Every day now our weather forecast carry blight warnings and when it is safe to spray.