Compost Pile Potatoes

[Recumbent ReCycler]

Late last fall or early last winter, Market basket had potatoes on sale.  I think I paid 20 cents per pound.  I decided to stock up, and bought about 40 or 50 lbs.  We managed to eat most of them, but about 15 lbs of them started sprouting and getting wrinkly in late winter or early spring, so after the snow melted, Patrick and I brought them out to the compost pile and spread them out on the pile, sprouts up, covering each one with leaves and grass clippings, but with the sprouts sticking out of the pile.  Later this summer the pile was covered with green leafy potato plants when my landlord dumped a bunch of branches on top of some of the plants.  I dug under the pile of branches and found a small potato, which I had with dinner.  I told my mom, and she said that it is best to wait until the potatoes' flowers bloom, then dig them up.  Yesterday evening I went out to the compost pile to throw some tomato scraps onto it, and noticed that most of the potato plants had died or were dieing.  I started digging through the pile around the dead plants, and there were potatoes all over the place.  I worked at it for a while, but eventually I just wanted to get away from the mosquitoes, so I quit for the night and brought my harvest into the house to clean them.  Here is the result of last night's work.

[Kat Kanning]

Cool 

[KBCraig]

Just don't eat any compost pile melons. All sorts of funky cross-pollination goes on... miscegenation between watermelons, cantaloupe, and honeydew is just wrong. 

[David]

Just don't eat any compost pile melons. All sorts of funky cross-pollination goes on... miscegenation between watermelons, cantaloupe, and honeydew is just wrong. 

Yes, breeding should ONLY be between a male and a female melon, never between species.  Anything else would be ungodly.   

BTW, I got a small but very sweet 1.5-2 inch cantaloupe from one of my potted plants.  I may get up to a half dozen before frost does them in.     For next season I will be growing an heirloom breed called Minnesota midget that is normally about that small.  This year I made the mistake an bought some hybrids, and I have no idea what the seeds will be, if they are even viable. 
I used no chemicals, pesticides, herbicides, and the only fertilizer I used was highly composted and dehydrated stuff, no chemicals.   

[ByronB]

I used no chemicals

Sorry but it just bugs me when people say that...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical

A chemical is basically any pure substance with a definitive chemical composition... so if you separate out the different chemicals in the chemical compounds you were using on your plants then you in fact used nothing but chemicals to grow your plants.

[sandm000]

I used no chemicals

Sorry but it just bugs me when people say that...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical

A chemical is basically any pure substance with a definitive chemical composition... so if you separate out the different chemicals in the chemical compounds you were using on your plants then you in fact used nothing but chemicals to grow your plants.

Probably also used light.

Does the use of the word "organic" bother you?  It pisses me off.  "organic potatoes"  doesn't mean the other potatoes are inorganic.  Fur christ's sake twinkies are organic. PCHONS and trace other elements.

[Kat Kanning]

I can't believe that a thread about 'compost pile potatoes' turned into a debate.   

[ByronB]

Probably also used light.

Does the use of the word "organic" bother you?  It pisses me off.  "organic potatoes"  doesn't mean the other potatoes are inorganic.  Fur christ's sake twinkies are organic. PCHONS and trace other elements.

Yea you have to be careful with that word to, it has another definition other then what my chemistry book says.


Cool potatoes though Defender of Liberty