Bottom of the Veggie Bin

Dimethylnaphthalene.

So if you’re like me, you just said, “Eh, what?”

Apparently we’ve all been eating it over the last however many years of our lives. Unless, of course, you’re one of those people who can afford ‘organic’ everything. For the rest of us ordinary mortals who must shop in Budgetland, this lovely chemical has probably been a part of our diet. Yippee!

It’s a sprout suppressant for potatoes.

Yum.

I had no idea about this until I started doing research of plants I could easily grow from common grocery store veggies. Sweet potato plants are really cool looking, and I wanted to grow some, but every website staunchly endorsed ‘ORGANIC potatoes’.

The path of discovery went something like this:

“Why must they be freakin’ ORGANIC potatoes?”

“This website and this website and that website says ooooorganic.”

“Sheesh, is someone fundamentally opposed to the good ol’ found-in-the-back-of-the-pantry potatoes?”

“What…they have chemicals sprayed on them…?”

“Well, most fruit and veggies do, right? I’ll just wash it off.”

“Wait……sprout suppressant…they soak into the potato? You mean I’ve been eating sprout suppressants?” *cough* *gag*

“I guess if Mom and Dad want to know why I don’t want kids, I’ll just blame the sprout suppressants.”

Despite all the dire warnings against using non-organic potatoes, I have forged ahead. Wisely or foolishly only the future can tell. I did very thoroughly scrub my potatoes, though, so we’ll see if they sprout. If they do, I reserve the right to cackle maniacally over their little shrubbery heads and shake my fist at the heavens.

Take that…erh…large, unpronounceable ‘D’ word.

A sweet potato, normal potato, and ginger root (going clockwise from top left corner).

The growth buds are right where my index finger tips are.

It’s quite a clean sweet potato as far as potatoes go. Must be a girl.

Scrub-a-dub-dub, Ms. Potato.

All right. We’ve got all our tools here. The boiled water is for the ginger.

Potatoes suspended like alien space ships. They both have little stubs at the top where I imagine they were snipped off the main plant. Sooo roots should come off the opposite end…right?

Overheated water, so now I have to wait until it comes down to 100 degrees. Bah! We’ll position the potatoes in the meanwhile.

A hot, sunny spot for Ms. Sweety. My room is too dim and cool for her to sprout successfully, I think. I’ll have to bring her inside at night so she doesn’t get too cold.

Jardin is in good company now. The regular potato likes cool, dim places. (Isn’t that why they did so well in Irland…well, until things went bad for them.)

110 degrees. Good enough. In your bath you go, Ginger!