pnbrown - around here immigrants tend to be interested in growing vegetables (and fruits)in general. The locals want to grow pizza ;o) Completely off topic (some more!) an amigo from El Salvadore was telling me the other day how they grow watermelon in his old country. Rather than plant melon seeds in a hill, they dig a pit some 4 to 5 feet in diameter, and plant in that (trying to catch extra rain water). He said it was common to have watermelons that were 4 feet long! He grew the same seed last year at the community garden and got a good 2 footer out of it, but doesn't think the season is long enough to grow a melon that is much bigger (given we had a hot, dry season last year) And back to potatoes - got mine in Apr 10 and they look like Bill's. Been a job protecting them from the frost this year, however. Cheers, Tim

Sure, you can still use them. One of our new-to-us and now-a-favorite recipes for butternut squash is the Beef and Butternut Stew linked below. We were pleasantly surprised how well the squash held up to the long cooking time in the broth. That might work well with the ones you think are drying out. We've re-thought our garden plan and are planting more butternuts (we got 16 large Waltham's this year and only have five left) because we discovered they make a great substitute for sweet potatoes. Here is a link that might be useful: Beef and Butternut Squash Stew

Hello all, This year I was not able to get sweet potato slips/plants from Sand Hill Preservation because they sold out. I personally do not want to order my plants in March or April when I can not plant until May. I decided I would just grow my own slips from a store bought potato. I had some nice slips growing when I found an eBay seller with a nice variety of sweet potato slips available. This seller had the Korean Purple!! FANTASTIC!!! This seller has plants ALL YEAR LONG -AND- only $1 per plant. Clean disease free plants. I only ordered a few plants - just in case. I am now a customer of these folks as long as they sell I will purchase. I know Sand Hill is a Mom & Pop operation but they do sell out pretty fast. **I am not affiliated with any merchant. I do not list this information to get you to buy anything. I only list this info because I had superb service and superb product from this merchant. DL Here is a link that might be useful: sweet potato merchant on eBay

Go ahead and plant them, might want to soak them over night and mix some super phosphate ( a hand full at each site) and water in well). They probably will not bloom next year) but should show some new green in 2-3 weeks. I had two that fell behind the microwave for about nine months, I planted them and they survive to this day. This was about 10 years ago.