Planting Sprouted Veggies
Potatoes, Onions, Garlic and More!
Sprouting vegetables in the pantry (or root cellar) are pretty much inevitable this time of year. Most root crop and bulbs were harvested last summer or fall, and they’ve been stored all winter…whether by you, or the grocery store.
Even if you just bought a bag of potatoes this week, they were stored somewhere since the last harvest, and at this point, all they need is a bit of warmth and sunlight to know it’s spring. Once out of propper “storage” they’ll start to sprout quickly, whether you like it or not.
If you do find sprouted vegetables in your pantry, no worries! Some can be used as is, such as onions or garlic. They’ll taste a bit milder, but they’re still fine to eat.
Sprouted potatoes, on the other hand, shouldn’t be eaten as they start to produce toxins when they go green.
No matter the type, if it’s sprouting, there’s a good change you can grow it either in your garden or indoors on a sunny windowsill.
Sprouted potatoes are especially useful, and we harvested 50 pounds of potatoes from a single 4x8 ft bed…all from about 3 pounds of sprouty pantry potatoes.
Sweet potatoes actually have to be sprouted before planting, as you’re planting the “slips” or rooted sprouts instead of the actual potato. A single sweet potato can yield up to 20 plants!
Here’s how to grow some of the most common sprouting vegetables:
How to Plant Sprouted Garlic (Spring Planted Garlic)
How to Plant Sprouted Sweet Potatoes (Sweet Potato Slips)
(Sprouted grocery store rhizomes work great for growing both ginger and turmeric, but most conventional crops are treated to prevent them from sprouting. Choose organic ginger and turmeric if you want to grow it yourself. They do great in containers.)
If you’re hoping for more obscure options, sunchokes also work really well if you can find them in the grocery store. They’re a perennial vegetable, they spread readily, and almost they’re impossible to kill…so watch where you put them.
Grocery store horseradish also grows well; you just need a tiny piece.
What are you harvesting, preserving, building, or exploring on your homestead this week? I’d love to hear about it!
Leave me a note in the comments…
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Until Next Time,
Ashley at Practical Self Reliance
I once tried an experiment where I dumped my compost bucket directly into a raised bed in the greenhouse all winter. Around Christmas time things started sprouting and I just let it grow to see what would happen. I had all these things you mentioned growing in a mini food forest with “volunteer” tomatoes climbing up the adjoining trellis that produced wonderfully early fruit that spring. Because of that, I have lovely beds of ginger and turmeric growing now. Great experience and great reminder!
-- TIEING UP SPREADING ROSES, WATERING, SHAPING ORNAMENTALS, & TREES, SPREADING SEEDS, & PLANTING FLOWERS, LANDSCAPING WITH LEFT OVER ROCKS, MOVING INDOOR PLANTS OUTDOORS AS TOLERATED, -- NEED TO REPOT TO LARGER POTS, BUY OBTAIN LARGER POTS, PROVIDE SOME EXCESS TO NEiGHBORS, ... SUNSHINE, SUNSHINE & WATER, WATER, WATER -- G R E E N L I F E , AND, HUGE YELLOW TALL FLOWERS ...... ...!!!