It is not quite spring, but we all wish it was Right? So just in case you are wondering what to do with your garden or if you do not have one how to get your toddlers and preschoolers to understand gardening with no soil around… I present you a Potato.
Yes a simple potato is all you need to teach your kids about gardening and food. It would help if it was an older potato or few, with some bumps coming out of it. Enough bumps that may make you skip it in your next mashed potato recipe.
All you have to do is place it in a glass container, preferably helped up by some toothpicks. Unless you have other contraptions.
Well technically it does not even need to be glass. Anything you have that can hold water, recyclable or not will do.
Place in a water and wait
one week
two weeks
three weeks
or more. In all reality all these were placed in water at the same time, meaning 5 weeks ago. I am not sure what made some grow faster then others. I think our indoor cat had something to do with it, but that is another story after all.
Before putting them in a soil we will have a little discussion about potatoes, roots and stems. What do you think?
Authors bio is coming up shortly.
We planted potatoes a couple of summers ago in old tires. Someone had told us about it, so we gave it a shot. I didn’t realize then, that there are seed potatoes. We just took a regular russet out of the basket we use for eating. We cut it in half and covered it in soil in the tires (which my husband had pre-drilled holes) We had 4 tires stacked ontop of each other. If you are limited on space, this could be a good option. It was also very easy, though not the most attractive. We got a small harvest, the kids were thrilled! I will do a little more research this go round. Come on spring! Good luck with your potatoes! Keep us posted please.
I think that’s fantastic!
We are already thinking about spring veg gardens here in Houston. The weather this week has been warmer, High 77 today. Soon it’ll be like that everyday, so I’m off to clean out my Fall vegetable plot and get ready for tomatoes, peppers, and whatever else the kids want to plant.
I love planting with my kids, we might have to try this potato trick. Do you plant them after you’ve let them sit like this for 5 weeks?
So cool! We’re going to try to sprout some potatoes over St. Patrick’s Day and I’m going to have to look back at your tutorial, it’s great. I remember harvesting potatoes from my grandfather’s garden as a child and it was like unearthing burried treasure.
I’ve been trying to grow a potato plant in a cup with water, its been 2 weeks and I have to keep changing the water every day because the potato seems to be breakingdown in the water its a soft on the bottom and it gets cloudy, gooey and bubbles form at the top of the water. Is this normal? Does some one what’s going on did i do something wrong?
I think it depends how big the shoots or eyes are and what state the potato is in. We went through few waters, and ended up throwing out one potato but that is because I was too slow in putting it in soil. What I am saying is that it is very normal, technically to grow potatoes you cover them with soil and add more soil the moment you see branches show up. I don’t think potatoes like as much water as beans.