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The tomatoes used to have flavor. Unless you grow them from legacy seeds, the tomato plants you get at the garden store won't taste any better than the ones at the super market. As others have said, it will cost you more to grow them than to buy them. And you will have more than you can eat when they start to ripen. We gardened for a few years and finally gave up. There was no benefit to it other than getting fresh air while watering our plant boxes every afternoon. Sort of like our above ground pool after the kids became teenagers. No one used it. The only exercise I got from it was cleaning it.
I disagree.
Last year I planted cherry tomatoes from a pack of seeds . They were very sweet better that what you can buy from stores. They picked tomatoes while they're still green to time it arriving at the store so not sweet at all.
BalloonLady, I really liked this post of yours but I'm a bit confused ... step 2, you tossed the starters into your compost pile, then at some point later on (???), step 3, you took potatoes OUT of the COMPOST PILE?
Can you please clarify? I thought stuff you tossed into the compost pile would, well, turn into compost ... so I'm clearly missing something here!
The potatoes were left for some months in the compost pile, I've forgotten now. I couldn't stand it so would. dig them up to see how far they'd gotten but a compost pile is pretty light fluffy dirt so that made it easier.
Our other compost pile had worms in it. We did not toss in any pears into this compost pile which seems to call the worms. There was manure but it was probably closer to a dirt mixture than rotten compost.
We had a rotten compost pile too, for the chickens. I don't know how they'd do in that nor can really tell you much of the difference except I don't like to grow potatoes where there are worms as they might eat them.
Sorry, I guess I'm a dunce about this stuff, because honestly, this still makes no sense to me, probably because my idea of a compost pile is something that's always in process with more stuff added all the time. So to actually grow potatoes in there ... I'm like, . Just can't picture picking potatoes out of that pile of "stuff."
(I think of a compost pile as something that I take from when I want to amend soil for a new garden, or bring an old garden back to life ... not something that I actually GROW STUFF IN.)
It might be simply a matter of semantics, i.e. me not understanding the way you and BalloonLady use the term "compost pile."
Well, a lot of people eventually stop adding stuff to their pile and start a new one. Maybe the compost was fully finished by the time BalloonLady planted the potatoes into it, or maybe only half finished. But once compost is mostly broken down, I don't see anything icky about it, it's just black gold with some twigs.
Ex this is what my compost pile looked like in late October (4 months after I started it):
I think you could definitely grow certain stuff in that (if we weren't about to head into Canadian winter and it wasn't in heavy shade).
Here's an example of someone that had a bunch of things growing in his compost pile (the seeds from various plants and vegetables he threw into it sprouted and started to grow).
We used our compost pile to grow potatoes at 1227 elevation and it got plenty of sun. I am not sure how they would do here where we are now, at 4200 feet but I believe it snows for too many months here for it to do well.
Well, a lot of people eventually stop adding stuff to their pile and start a new one. Maybe the compost was fully finished by the time BalloonLady planted the potatoes into it, or maybe only half finished. But once compost is mostly broken down, I don't see anything icky about it, it's just black gold with some twigs.
Ex this is what my compost pile looked like in late October (4 months after I started it):
I think you could definitely grow certain stuff in that (if we weren't about to head into Canadian winter and it wasn't in heavy shade).
Here's an example of someone that had a bunch of things growing in his compost pile (the seeds from various plants and vegetables he threw into it sprouted and started to grow).
We used our compost pile to grow potatoes at 1227 elevation and it got plenty of sun. I am not sure how they would do here where we are now, at 4200 feet but I believe it snows for too many months here for it to do well.
Not sure where you live exactly, but this guy is a farmer/seed breeder and he grows a variety of things at 4900 ft in Paradise, Utah, including potatoes.
I have had a pretty big garden 20'x50' for years. Lots of work and lots of good veggies. This fall, I covered it with a foot of leaves, watered and covered it with black plastic. I had neglected to enrich it so it needs some time for to sit unused. I don't intend to garden it this coming season but I want to enrich the soil and have it weed, grass free if I want it in the future. I have started to enrich a small area by the house on the southside for some tomatoes and maybe peppers, some lettuces and onions for salads. I also have an herb garden and some strawberries patches, and dwarf fruit trees. I have taken over mowing our yard and pretty much everything that hubby used to do (good exercise for me anyway). It will be fun with just a little plot to fuss over!
Thanks for this as I had the same question. I was assuming the eye turned into starter plants that can be moved to the garden. Regardless growing potatoes is fun. unlike all the other veggies with root veggies you don't know what you will get until you bring up the shovel. A fork style shovel by the way so you can pull the potato and the soil falls through.
This is a starter potato. Where you see the growth, is one "eye" or indentation. We might have messed up eating the potatoes, only cutting the eyes out. But they were SO delicious and I am not a potato lover. They are just so flavorful it was hard to resist. It's probably best to toss the entire potato in and let them reproduce themselves on their own. We lived at 1500 feet and the heat was always 95-100 much of the year so we did have to water it. I wish I knew a bale of hay was just $7, I'd probably have bought it to keep the moisture in. We watered it about every other day in summer, and once every few weeks in spring, none in winter.
My neighbor copied me but bought a bag of red organic potatoes from the grocery store when they were on sale. He never cut the eyes out and it seemed his went much after than ours. It worked just fine and was less expensive. They say to start with a real variety buying the starters at a reputable nursery but who knows.
As stated, I shared with my 3 neighbors and obtained cage free organic eggs at the time. They'd also let me take their chicken manure until we decided just to get our own chickens which we loved. They were the most inexpensive pets we've ever had beings that they ate almost solely out of the compost and free ranged. Again, we were blessed to live near an orchard so they had no issues with us picking up their old pears off of the ground .I think we may have taken the apples off the ground too. Worms love sweat fruit like pears. I honestly do not believe the worms would've ate the potatoes anyhow as there were a few (my husband tells me now) in that compost pile. They just preferred the other things we fed them.
Anyone can have free endless potatoes, eggs and chickens as pets for almost nothing except the chicken coop and fencing for the chickens. They used to follow me around the block when I'd take my walk. Following behind me in a perfect line, the neighbors found it amusing.
It's these things that make me wonder why people think they need a million dollars to retire (unless you live in the city, ten I feel for you) The best things in life are fairly cheap and give constant entertainment or free. It will always be that way
Last year I planted cherry tomatoes from a pack of seeds . They were very sweet better that what you can buy from stores. They picked tomatoes while they're still green to time it arriving at the store so not sweet at all.
I said unless you grow them from seeds the tomato plants at the garden store will taste just like the tomatoes in the super market. You grew yours from seeds, so what are you disagreeing with?
I said unless you grow them from seeds the tomato plants at the garden store will taste just like the tomatoes in the super market. You grew yours from seeds, so what are you disagreeing with?
You said unless it's "legacy seeds". Mine are not. They're just regular $2.99 a pack production seeds.
In previous years I also grow them from young plants I bought from store. They tasted equally sweet and delicious.
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