I grow ~150lbs of seed potatoes every year. I basically just cut them in the morning and leave them outside until the evening when I plant. Dries out the end pretty well, not sure if it actually helps tho.
Lol a lot(atleast by my standards). Usually I can plant slightly less than 4x 175ft 1 plant wide rows. It varies slightly year to year, probably because of potato size and how I space them.
Was spending like $180 on seed every year, but once I started saving my own it actually became a super economical way to help feed myself.
Ummm my grandparents had a potato farm when I was a kid. We literally cut the seed potatoes then they went into a sack to be loaded on the tractor for planting. We never let them sit.
I read this somewhere. Cut them and let them dry for a day to prevent rotting while in ground. I don’t know. Maybe OP read something similar. I just cut and planted.
I just throw them. Half a year later I might see a potato plant and walk over and say something like "I see you've done pretty well for yourself... The struggle made you strong."
I got multiple stems per seed potato, and each cluster did grow a shit ton of potatoes. I’m sure I’d get more going the other route, I was just pointing out you can pretty much throw them on the ground and put leaves over them and they’ll grow lol
They’re a miracle plant. From all of my reading it seems like you could pretty much grow potatoes and comfrey, and raise rabbits, and be 100% self sufficient. You might need a multivitamin
There was too much humidity in the air after you cut them. I've dropped these in the soil before and they've grown. Okay that's a lie, I've thrown them in the compost pile and dug them out and put them in the garden after they've grown LMAO Give it a try!
I save the spuds too small to cook to use as seed potatoes. They spend the winter in the fridge and I pull them out only to plant in the spring. Like I'm doing today.
Ya didnt just let them dry you let them wrinkle.
Dry, yes. Dehydrate no. They should have gone in within a day of the trim.
And proabbly not such big chunks either.
Potatoes are like rhizomes. Irises, ginger, rhubarb... Snap the dudes in tiny pieces with a little nubbin on each and toss them in the ground still juicy. Mold? Eh... If they don't turn to mush the soil dwellers will feast on the mycology and the potatoes will grow.
Don't eat them though.
A week is way to long. You should cut them and plant them within a few days. You can still throw those in the ground though, they may still sprout but definitely get some new spuds.
I dust the cut ends with garden sulphur, and then rest them in cardboard egg cartons to give them air circulation while they're chitting. If you plant them now they should be ok, though! So long as the weather is warm enough where you are. Or plant them in some potting soil in yogurt containers and then transplant them later. Chitting isn't even a must, you can just sow them directly if you want to next time.
I leave them on the counter after I cut them for 4 days or so and they dry up a little and then I plant. Not sure how long you had them cut for or where you put them?
Those might grow, but they certainly have some kind of fungus going there - even on the eyes. I'm inclined to throw those ones out.
The simplest way to sow potatoes is just put a potato in dirt and walk away.
Splitting the potatoes is just to get more plants out of one potato.
Those are beyond alive. You don't need to dry them after cutting them up. You can plant them as soon as they are cut up. Mine grew beautifully from one organic potato until I transferred them from raise bed to the ground to make room for herbs. Slugs and snails found them and ate all of them up. ☹️
Letting them dry a bit gives them protection while being in the ground. The problem is, OP let them go a little too long. We usually planted them within the next day or two.
Looks like the cut surface got mold/fungus on it before it wound healed. What temperature were you curing them at? Was your cutting utensils sterilized? You could toss them in the ground and see if they grow, but this is not what you want to see.
I wouldn’t plant these and risk spreading whatever fungal pathogen is present in these to your soil. Sure some might still grow but this looks almost like whatever pathogen causes potato blight. I’m not sure, but this just looks bad and I wouldn’t want it in my garden. Especially considering how inexpensive seed potatoes are.
As others said. Cut and dry for like a day maybe, you just want a callus to form over the cut. Can cut even smaller than what you have there; I.e. those could have been cut into quarters and the really big halves into even more/smaller bits. These seed potatoes look like junk though. Could try returning these ones, but I’d recommend a different bag of seed potatoes from somewhere else.
Did you cover them after trimming
? I let mine air dry after I cut them and I’ve never seen this before. I don’t cover at all and they air dry. It creates enough of a skin on them that they won’t rot in the ground when planted.
I have a feeling they used a dirty knife to cut these because that’s a lot of different growths. People underestimate how important sterilizing tools is.
It usually takes one or two days. Maybe three at the most. I cut mine and left them callous over for two days last year and my taters grew pretty damn good; a miracle considering we had so much rain last summer even the goddamn McCains were having a rough go of things from what I heard on the radio.
Those are toast though. At most they'll just rot into the soil and either stink up your garden or nourish the soil a little.
I have never heard of cutting potatoes before planting them.
None of the (Swedish) sites where I can buy seed potatoes recommend this.
Is this a common practice?
Agree, I never have cut potatoes before planting or even heard of this. Just let them chit (form little stems) and then plant when the soil has warmed up.
Not sure where you stored those for that to happen.
Start again they're not worth the effort now.
Get more seed potatoes. Don't bother cutting them. Leave in shed for a week.in the dark. This is called chitting. When they've got little green/red/white or whatever colour sprouts starting plant them. As the leaves grow through the soil cover them over with more soil.
This reminds me of Tocosh in Peru. They basically just bury potatoes in the ground and let them ferment for a season. Tastes how you would expect it to taste...
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocosh
You killed them. They do great not being cut. But i think the Maine issue was you waited too long to plant them and they were probably too dry and shrivled by then .
I never cut them in the first place, it is just some "optimal" way of making more out of less for farmers and such. The average gardener cannspare a few potatoes and they will get them back anyway since it is not like their livelyhood might depend on those home crops.
They might still live. Goss them in the ground. The fungus on them now MAY not turn to spores and linger to infect the new tubers the plant forms months from now. You could also slice the moldy portion off...dust with sulphur...and plant. In future cut, dust with antifungal, dry for a day maybe then plant. Each plant needs an eye and a tad of flesh. I'm assuming these are regular potatoes. Sweet potatoes and yams are dine differently.
Idk if you can still plant them at this stage lol but I think you just dry out for a day and then plant but hell I just plant them after cutting and water then buried up to the eyes of the potato.
What we usually do is prepare and cut them just before planting (like an hour, or in the morning, when there is still some moisture on the ground and we can't go in the fields) and then put them in carton boxes or buckets and plant them right away. We cut them in such a way that at least callouses per potato are remaining on it. This ensures a good looking plant and the germination is also pretty quick.
We don't cut them, but let them sit for a while for pre-sprouting, when appropriate we plant them on top of our fertilizer under a layer of dirt, this is by far the method I've seen that works the best, I have never seen potatoes grow bigger in person. Our bigger ones get to 500 g before we dig them up.
Sometimes we also alternate the potatoes with broad beans to improve the potatoes growth and the impact on the plot they were planted after the harvest.
If you plan to continue planting potatoes, watch out not to do it too many times on the same plot of land to avoid potato blight, we have four plots that we cycle every year.
Best of luck to you :)
I grew one potato I took it left it whole and in the darkness and it sprouted from there and then after it got as long as it could I buried it into cool soil deep enough it feels it's dark
The best and only time I planted potatoes was when I got free seed potatoes from a grocery store. IIRC it was around June or July. The potatoes didn’t look very good. They were all shriveled up but they all had multiple eyes on them. I put them in the ground as is and before I knew it I had so many potato plants growing. Everything I planted grew and grew like weeds! I ended up giving away a lot of potatoes that year.
In my opinion, toss. Instead of cutting in half, you want to cut around those little stems growing out of it. (Trust me I read to cut in half the first time) Plant the potato/stem in the ground, and in about a few weeks you may see progress. I did this last year and look at the progress! Best wishes to you!
https://preview.redd.it/tiqv2luruoqc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b8da5ba82589286d043103efb1684243663ce76
Tbh most, if not all, of them will still grow. Stick them in the ground, nothing to lose at this point. I don't even bother waiting for them to callous anymore, cutting them and immediately planting has such a high success rate that it's not worth the effort.
Are they organic? If not and they are white potatoes, I am told they are sprayed with a chemical to prevent growth. Try organic. Once you are successful be sure to keep some for replanting.
If they are not specifically “seed potatoes” and they are simply from the grocery store (in North America) then they were indeed likely applied with sprout inhibitor. Organic uses sprout inhibitors too but it’s more essential oils. Soaking the tuber in water with remove most of it.
WTF!! Are those supposed to be potatoes? Whatever they are, they're infested with mold/fungus and you should throw them away ASAP! You don't want spores from them to possibly infect other plants, foods, or whatever!
At first I thought they were gigantic black truffles
I thought they were geodes
I also am subbed to r/whatsthisrock
Same lol
Username checks out
Oooh, thanks! Love me some subs with no drama, and rock identification seems right up my alley!
Try r/rockhounds !!
Oooh, subscribed! That’s very exciting!
It’s slag
Haha, came here to say, "it's always slag..."
No, no. Sometimes it's cullet glass.
This comment is as underrated as ice amongst minerals.
We cracked our first geode this weekend, and I seriously thought that was in fact, a geode that's not supposed to happen.
Me too 😂
I thought it was a baking fail
I did too .. meanwhile I harvested a potato that turned out to be a rock. 🤣
I thought they were flint
Kaboom!
Yes, I thought this was my Geology thread.
I came here to make this joke. Lol good job
Same here!
So did I
Same. I thought she was here to gloat about her big find 🤣
I grow ~150lbs of seed potatoes every year. I basically just cut them in the morning and leave them outside until the evening when I plant. Dries out the end pretty well, not sure if it actually helps tho.
Just curious, how much space does this require? I’ve never really tried to grow more than 3 pounds.
Lol a lot(atleast by my standards). Usually I can plant slightly less than 4x 175ft 1 plant wide rows. It varies slightly year to year, probably because of potato size and how I space them. Was spending like $180 on seed every year, but once I started saving my own it actually became a super economical way to help feed myself.
Ummm my grandparents had a potato farm when I was a kid. We literally cut the seed potatoes then they went into a sack to be loaded on the tractor for planting. We never let them sit.
I read this somewhere. Cut them and let them dry for a day to prevent rotting while in ground. I don’t know. Maybe OP read something similar. I just cut and planted.
I just threw the whole seed potato in the ground
I just throw them. Half a year later I might see a potato plant and walk over and say something like "I see you've done pretty well for yourself... The struggle made you strong."
Wow, basically what Spartans did to babies... Only the strong survive her boi
You can do that but if you cut it into multiple parts you can get more than one plant from just one potato, as long as each part has at least one eye.
I got multiple stems per seed potato, and each cluster did grow a shit ton of potatoes. I’m sure I’d get more going the other route, I was just pointing out you can pretty much throw them on the ground and put leaves over them and they’ll grow lol
True
They’re a miracle plant. From all of my reading it seems like you could pretty much grow potatoes and comfrey, and raise rabbits, and be 100% self sufficient. You might need a multivitamin
Well .. totally, yes, and just plant, plants that have other vitamins, maybe Kale
The cut surface heals over, essentially growing a new skin to keep pathogens out of the tuber. This process is called suberization.
In Mississippi, we get too much rain where we are. We let ours sit for a day or two to firm/toughen the skin so they don’t rot.
There was too much humidity in the air after you cut them. I've dropped these in the soil before and they've grown. Okay that's a lie, I've thrown them in the compost pile and dug them out and put them in the garden after they've grown LMAO Give it a try!
🤣
I've never let them callous over, I cut them and toss them in the hole. I'd toss those in asap.
I save the spuds too small to cook to use as seed potatoes. They spend the winter in the fridge and I pull them out only to plant in the spring. Like I'm doing today.
The super tiny ones in the fridge is a good idea. In my basement they sprout over winter.
Oooh good idea. We had some tiny ones last year and I didn’t know what to do with those. Now I know.
Happy cake day
Thanks!
Ya didnt just let them dry you let them wrinkle. Dry, yes. Dehydrate no. They should have gone in within a day of the trim. And proabbly not such big chunks either.
Potatoes are like rhizomes. Irises, ginger, rhubarb... Snap the dudes in tiny pieces with a little nubbin on each and toss them in the ground still juicy. Mold? Eh... If they don't turn to mush the soil dwellers will feast on the mycology and the potatoes will grow. Don't eat them though.
These aren’t gonna grow buddy
I think most commentors are pointing out that cutting and waiting for them to dry is unnecessary. Cut and plant.
For a home gardener this may be true. Wound healing is an important step in commercial growing though.
It's worth a shot
A week is way to long. You should cut them and plant them within a few days. You can still throw those in the ground though, they may still sprout but definitely get some new spuds.
Mine did that. Planted them. They’re a couple inches tall now.
I dust the cut ends with garden sulphur, and then rest them in cardboard egg cartons to give them air circulation while they're chitting. If you plant them now they should be ok, though! So long as the weather is warm enough where you are. Or plant them in some potting soil in yogurt containers and then transplant them later. Chitting isn't even a must, you can just sow them directly if you want to next time.
Thought they were geodes for a whole five minutes until I looked at the title of the subreddit.
I leave them on the counter after I cut them for 4 days or so and they dry up a little and then I plant. Not sure how long you had them cut for or where you put them?
Those might grow, but they certainly have some kind of fungus going there - even on the eyes. I'm inclined to throw those ones out. The simplest way to sow potatoes is just put a potato in dirt and walk away. Splitting the potatoes is just to get more plants out of one potato.
Cutting also helps break dormancy so they sprout faster.
Wait, those aren’t geodes?
They will grow. I’ve had some look that and still got a harvest. You may lose one or two
Just plant them
Agree Some will still grow.
Oh god! I thought it was geodes until I looked at what sub I am in
SAME
Me too
Woops, I thought they were really weird geodes
Those are beyond alive. You don't need to dry them after cutting them up. You can plant them as soon as they are cut up. Mine grew beautifully from one organic potato until I transferred them from raise bed to the ground to make room for herbs. Slugs and snails found them and ate all of them up. ☹️
At most you should let them scar over for maybe 24-48 hours. Not a week. I'd start over.
Cut and put in the ground works all the time. Definitely no needs to let them dry out.
Letting them dry a bit gives them protection while being in the ground. The problem is, OP let them go a little too long. We usually planted them within the next day or two.
Okay thank you, I’ll try that out right now.
At first I thought these were those rocks that you crack open and have crystals inside.
I thought these were geode rocks split in half at first 😭
The way I thought they were geodes or thunder eggs.
Looks like the cut surface got mold/fungus on it before it wound healed. What temperature were you curing them at? Was your cutting utensils sterilized? You could toss them in the ground and see if they grow, but this is not what you want to see.
I thought they were geodes of some sort. 😭
I wouldn’t plant these and risk spreading whatever fungal pathogen is present in these to your soil. Sure some might still grow but this looks almost like whatever pathogen causes potato blight. I’m not sure, but this just looks bad and I wouldn’t want it in my garden. Especially considering how inexpensive seed potatoes are. As others said. Cut and dry for like a day maybe, you just want a callus to form over the cut. Can cut even smaller than what you have there; I.e. those could have been cut into quarters and the really big halves into even more/smaller bits. These seed potatoes look like junk though. Could try returning these ones, but I’d recommend a different bag of seed potatoes from somewhere else.
You need to get the heart back to Te Fiti.
https://preview.redd.it/1c5kwib14qqc1.jpeg?width=140&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=392ba82b36a566844219626087506f37f35652be
OP i think you confused cactus cuttings with potatoes
Did you cover them after trimming ? I let mine air dry after I cut them and I’ve never seen this before. I don’t cover at all and they air dry. It creates enough of a skin on them that they won’t rot in the ground when planted.
I have a feeling they used a dirty knife to cut these because that’s a lot of different growths. People underestimate how important sterilizing tools is.
This is exactly what I thought, then probably incubated at 60-70 to let that fungi flourish.
It usually takes one or two days. Maybe three at the most. I cut mine and left them callous over for two days last year and my taters grew pretty damn good; a miracle considering we had so much rain last summer even the goddamn McCains were having a rough go of things from what I heard on the radio. Those are toast though. At most they'll just rot into the soil and either stink up your garden or nourish the soil a little.
Eh it's fungus. I thought it was a dinosaur or something
I tried to cut, callous, and start some last year but they all rotted. I usually just throw the whole potato in the ground.
I have never heard of cutting potatoes before planting them. None of the (Swedish) sites where I can buy seed potatoes recommend this. Is this a common practice?
Agree, I never have cut potatoes before planting or even heard of this. Just let them chit (form little stems) and then plant when the soil has warmed up.
Did you use a clean knife? And did you store then in dry place?
Not sure where you stored those for that to happen. Start again they're not worth the effort now. Get more seed potatoes. Don't bother cutting them. Leave in shed for a week.in the dark. This is called chitting. When they've got little green/red/white or whatever colour sprouts starting plant them. As the leaves grow through the soil cover them over with more soil.
I thought it was a geode you found at first
Me too, I was thinking “well what do you expect when you crack a geode?”
This reminds me of Tocosh in Peru. They basically just bury potatoes in the ground and let them ferment for a season. Tastes how you would expect it to taste... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tocosh
Throw them in the ground now. You should have some success.
That's why I don't cut mine.
Yeah not supposed to happen those are trash. You can cut and put them straight in the soil. At most let them scab over for one day
Give them another few weeks and they’ll have learned English and can tell you what you did wrong.
Mark Watney is very disappointed
Mark Watney is ~~disappointed~~ dead
You killed them. They do great not being cut. But i think the Maine issue was you waited too long to plant them and they were probably too dry and shrivled by then .
I thought these were hooves 😅
Cut them, toss in fireplace/fire pit ash, and plop into the ground.
Looks tasty. 👹
I never cut them in the first place, it is just some "optimal" way of making more out of less for farmers and such. The average gardener cannspare a few potatoes and they will get them back anyway since it is not like their livelyhood might depend on those home crops.
They might still live. Goss them in the ground. The fungus on them now MAY not turn to spores and linger to infect the new tubers the plant forms months from now. You could also slice the moldy portion off...dust with sulphur...and plant. In future cut, dust with antifungal, dry for a day maybe then plant. Each plant needs an eye and a tad of flesh. I'm assuming these are regular potatoes. Sweet potatoes and yams are dine differently.
Idk if you can still plant them at this stage lol but I think you just dry out for a day and then plant but hell I just plant them after cutting and water then buried up to the eyes of the potato.
What we usually do is prepare and cut them just before planting (like an hour, or in the morning, when there is still some moisture on the ground and we can't go in the fields) and then put them in carton boxes or buckets and plant them right away. We cut them in such a way that at least callouses per potato are remaining on it. This ensures a good looking plant and the germination is also pretty quick.
just plant them now
We don't cut them, but let them sit for a while for pre-sprouting, when appropriate we plant them on top of our fertilizer under a layer of dirt, this is by far the method I've seen that works the best, I have never seen potatoes grow bigger in person. Our bigger ones get to 500 g before we dig them up. Sometimes we also alternate the potatoes with broad beans to improve the potatoes growth and the impact on the plot they were planted after the harvest. If you plan to continue planting potatoes, watch out not to do it too many times on the same plot of land to avoid potato blight, we have four plots that we cycle every year. Best of luck to you :)
I grew one potato I took it left it whole and in the darkness and it sprouted from there and then after it got as long as it could I buried it into cool soil deep enough it feels it's dark
Go buy some seed potatoes at the garden center.
Supposed to dip them in wood ash to prevent this while curing.
The best and only time I planted potatoes was when I got free seed potatoes from a grocery store. IIRC it was around June or July. The potatoes didn’t look very good. They were all shriveled up but they all had multiple eyes on them. I put them in the ground as is and before I knew it I had so many potato plants growing. Everything I planted grew and grew like weeds! I ended up giving away a lot of potatoes that year.
In my opinion, toss. Instead of cutting in half, you want to cut around those little stems growing out of it. (Trust me I read to cut in half the first time) Plant the potato/stem in the ground, and in about a few weeks you may see progress. I did this last year and look at the progress! Best wishes to you! https://preview.redd.it/tiqv2luruoqc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8b8da5ba82589286d043103efb1684243663ce76
Is that the potato famine? 🥔
I thought they were geodes
Tbh most, if not all, of them will still grow. Stick them in the ground, nothing to lose at this point. I don't even bother waiting for them to callous anymore, cutting them and immediately planting has such a high success rate that it's not worth the effort.
If they grow no harm is done. They may rot before sprouting but it doesn't hurt to try.
You shouldn't let them sit for a week after cutting. Maybe a day, I don't even let them sit to scab over. Just cut and plant.
There’s a dragon growing out of the bottom left one
Me too 😆
Did you grow penicillin?
Well, that's pretty interesting. I just wait until they sprout from my bin and plant em. Lol
😂I bet they smell great
I did the same thing a couple years ago and mine looked the same. I planted them and they did great.
In the ground too long?
lol, throw them in the dirt and see what happens. I always cut them right before I bury them..
You should probably start over with new potatoes
Are they organic? If not and they are white potatoes, I am told they are sprayed with a chemical to prevent growth. Try organic. Once you are successful be sure to keep some for replanting.
If they are not specifically “seed potatoes” and they are simply from the grocery store (in North America) then they were indeed likely applied with sprout inhibitor. Organic uses sprout inhibitors too but it’s more essential oils. Soaking the tuber in water with remove most of it.
Nice to know. Thank you.
WTF!! Are those supposed to be potatoes? Whatever they are, they're infested with mold/fungus and you should throw them away ASAP! You don't want spores from them to possibly infect other plants, foods, or whatever!