Regrow: Tomatoes and Potatoes

I'm starting to think about a spring garden. There's nothing tastier than a tomato that's 10-seconds fresh off the plant, and you know that you grew it yourself!

The good news is tomatoes are SUPER easy to grow (I am not careful with reading directions, and not a patient care-giver.) This year I'm going to try potatoes as well. Both tomatoes and potatoes are grown from scraps or waste.

True confession: around Thanksgiving, Safeway had "Buy a 10 LB Bag of Potatoes / Get One Free" special. I made my way through the first bag, left the second in the garage, and now have a bag of sprouted potatoes. It seems like a huge waste of food, even if they were free, hence my desire to start growing potatoes this year. :)

If you want to sprout potatoes on your own, leave them in your pantry in their regular bag for a month or so, and they will sprout on their own.

So I'm reading up on how to go about planting these, and the interwebs recommend cutting the potatoes into pieces, with each piece containing a couple sprouts. Then you leave them out for 24 hours before planting 4" deep in soil. They say potatoes do best in 45-80 degrees F, so these will be started inside in planters. I'm still early in this process and will keep you posted in the coming months about the results.

A couple weeks ago, I decided to start my tomatoes. I've been doing tomatoes the last few years, but have been starting too late, planting my seeds around April, and unfortunately losing a lot of green tomatoes in October. So, this year, I figured I'd get the ball rolling in February, and am hoping for a fuller season. Yup, these sprouts are just a couple weeks old!

Getting the sprouts started is as easy as starting with a tomato. I took a regular tomato that I was dicing for dinner, and scraped the seeds straight into a 1" deep pocket in the soil, pulp and all. You don't need to clean or dry the seeds, and bonus, they were free. Add a little water, forget about them for a few days, and you've got sprouts!

Once the weather warms up, and your seedlings are about 6" tall, you can transfer them from their indoor pot into the garden. You'll want to plant them on a very sunny side of your house, and once they're outside, they'll need daily watering or a drip sprinkler. Lots of sun + lots of water = lots of tomatoes!  

Happy almost spring, everyone. What are you thinking of planting this year?