"John Savage" wrote in message
...

i promise you, they do :-)

Then that's good enough for me!

good! g

Actually, I'm sure they might *eventually*
but we've all dug up a fallow bed and discovered a few 4 month old spuds.
So I still suggest that he plant spuds that are shooting so they emerge
quickly. Otherwise, he's wasting part of the growing season.

it does seem to take longer if they're not shooting. i'm not sure if this is
some type of psychological effect, but it seems likely they shoot when warm,
so if unchitted taties are put in the (colder) ground they probably have to
think about things for a while before they shoot. also, you know any with
shoots are good ones, if they haven't any, you can't of course be sure they
will grow anything anyway.

i am wondering how commercial growers do it(?)

And those
that fail to emerge in short time can be assumed lost and so replaced with
a new seed potato to ensure maximum use of the garden bed.

that's how you end up with volunteers everywhere - it's how they grow

Err, *some* come up, but considering the number of discarded tiny taters,
only a fraction come up next season as plants. I've noticed some
volunteers
emerge from discarded kitchen peelings, too, but not reliably.

i give peelings to the chooks, otherwise i should feel oppressed by random
potatoes everywhere (should that happen) ;-) i'd really rather eat the
peels, but i'm mostly not the cook at my house so apparently i can't have
opinions about it.

we eat even the tiny ones, so i'm not sure about what fraction go on to
become plants in nature. i just found another few potatoes from last year
stashed in the garden that i swore i went over really thoroughly. (where
does it end?) they\re not rotting nor shooting yet, so i'll see what they do
now i have left them where they are. there have been taties growing there in
that spot since we came here - i just can't find the end of them, the tricky
things! which makes me fairly convinced all manner of spuds (small,
whatever) left lying around tends to result in potato plants :-) (or at any
rate, sebagos, as i think they are).
kylie