Using a Supermarket potato for seed.

**Durgan** · 08-20-2009, 01:39 PM

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?UAOSR 20 August 2009 Supermarket Seed

This year a supermarket purchased potato was used to determine if it would be viable for home garden seed. Only one red type was planted, and the results were more than acceptable. The plant produced about 4 pounds of new potatoes.

**dschipman** · 08-20-2009, 05:08 PM

That is awesome!! I was wondering if this was possible. Did you use any special fertilizer, how deep did you plant it?

thanks

**dmarie** · 08-20-2009, 06:29 PM

We did that as experiment few years back and every year they grow back best 25 cent experiment the kids and i did.

**frugalfranny** · 08-20-2009, 06:35 PM

Thanks durgan........THIS was the one I was waiting to hear about.

**Durgan** · 08-20-2009, 07:16 PM

Originally Posted by dschipman

That is awesome!! I was wondering if this was possible. Did you use any special fertilizer, how deep did you plant it?

thanks

My potatoes, method and results.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?FAKES Summary: Potatoes 2009.

**MomToTwoBoys** · 08-20-2009, 07:44 PM

That is so awesome! Can you do the same thing with an onion or do you just get the green part growing out of the ground that's edible?

**ladytoysdream** · 08-21-2009, 08:00 AM

This is the first year that we have planted potatoes where we live. We have been on this 2 acres since 1990 when we bought this farm pasture lot, had it bulldozed and brought in our double wide.

Anyways....this spring we planted 3x the garden area we put in last year. We tried red and white potatoes. I had bought 2 fifty pound bags at a farm veggie stand early this spring. So they were eating potatoes, NOT seed potatoes. We had eaten most of them but as we got to the bottom of the bags, the potatoes had started sprouting. So I told the hubby we needed to experiment and see if our ground was good enough to grow this crop. So in the potatoes went...whole....with lots of sprouts on them. I did not cut them down and let them heal a few days before planting them. Just as they were. The first group were hilled. 3 rows. Not sure of length of row without measuring. But not real long rows.
We have been eating quite a few in our daily meals. Just picking a hill at a time to have enough for that day. The other evening, I had hubby help me pull 1/2 a row so I could can them. We got just over 10 pounds and one white potato alone was 12 ounces.
I canned 9 pints of just the white potatoes yesterday morning.
I still have the reds to do yet, but I need to pick a few more to make enough jars to fill the canner full.
I am keeping the 2 colors apart to see if there is any difference in the taste quality. I do prefer reds though.

We did have a high amount of rain this summer, and most of the time it was very cool. This past week it has gone high temps though. I am sure the weather this year has been a big factor in how much potatoes we have gotten so far, and or will harvest.

Then after the first crop of potatoes were up and growing good, I did plant some other ones to use up the balance of the sprouted ones from the same bags. These were NOT hilled. So far I have not dug any of these to see how the potatoes are looking. Call it another experiment

These second group of plants are looking really good. The first group had gotten hammered by frost 3 times as we put them in early.

Will I buy seed potatoes in the future................nope......

ONIONS...
We bought seed onions and they did well for us....VERY well.
The second group we put in were very small and planted later but did just as well as the first group. I am thinking sometimes too early is NOT a good thing.

I had a onion from the grocery store that was very mushy and was sprouting. Hubby threw it out on me. I had told him I wanted to experiment with it. I found it later out on the compost pile.
I rescued it, and put it in the row with the other onions. At the end of the row, so I knew which onion it was.
When I harvested it....it was a double and the bulb part was VERY solid. Looked like a regular onion to me. Just a different variety than what we had.

I do prefer the white and red onions. The yellows this year were a little wet on the outside part of the bulb. The whites and reds were fine. So that is what we will plant next year.

**brenda67** · 08-25-2009, 06:15 PM

I was told by my local Agway that "I could not" use a store bought potatoe because they are sprayed with pestisides sp? and unsafe to eat? I wonder if he was pulling my leg just so he could make the sale?

**RetiredVeryEarly** · 08-28-2009, 11:33 PM

I was told by my local Agway that "I could not" use a store bought potatoe because they are sprayed with pestisides sp? and unsafe to eat? I wonder if he was pulling my leg just so he could make the sale?

It is unsafe to eat potatoes from the grocery store?!? Yes, he is trying to confuse you so he can make a sale. The ones sprayed with pesticides aren't so great to eat, but once you plant them and grow new potatoes from them, they will have a lot LESS pesticides than the one you planted, unless you added more yourself.

Store potatoes are generally sprayed with crap so that they won't sprout quickly, but IF they are sprouting, that means they are trying to grow and you can go for it. I have grown store bought potatoes that grew in my pantry or basement many times.

Have an excellent crop of organic yellow banana fingerlings growing right now (a friend bought too many to eat), plus two kinds of heirlooms I got from some guy involved in saving potato species. I have already harvested the russets and the Yukon Gold types from store bought potatoes.

If you plant green onions they will grow much bigger. My mum taught me that you can even grow beans from bags you buy at the grocery store! I tried growing lentils once from a pound bag I had for making soup, worked fine.

**Sassyclass** · 08-31-2009, 07:21 AM

Oh, I'm glad you posted this. I want to try the same thing next year and the farmer I work with said it would work. Glad to actually see some results.

Cat