Below are the elephant ear bulbs I dug up yesterday. The common green variety, Colocasia Escuelenta. This was 1 bulb when I planted it in June. Now it’s 3 in a line.

It was not a big bulb, maybe 2” in diameter. The kind that come 3 to a bag. I had started it in a pot in the house around April, and moved the pot outside in late May. Then an animal ate the sprout off the top, and it began to make sprouts on the sides, and I planted it in the ground in early June.

This performed so well compared to the one I planted in a pot, that I decided to see if I could keep it over the winter, and thus get a bigger plant next year. I had reviewed prior threads on how to store them. I have a cooler closet in the basement where I keep my tuberous begonias.

The second bulb that I planted shows a new bulb growing on top of what appears to be the original shrunken bulb. That is what glads do, as I recall.

But now, looking at this, I am not clear about what to do. I had read on here that the parent makes pups. But even the central bulb of the "3 in a line" is no bigger than what I planted. I was expecting to see a stem that could be snapped off before storage. I don’t see anything here that can be removed, unless it will look different after it dries awhile in the house.

I probably waited too long to dig it up. Too many garden tasks in the fall! The top of this is as it was cut off. The leafy top got frosted a couple of weeks ago, and the leaves were cut off about an inch above the ground. So that part was exposed. It is soft. The base is firm. On the first photo it is sending out some kind of side shoot (also firm) that could have been a new leaf forming: it looks like a kind of reddish asparagus spear or sweet potato pointing to the lower left.

So what do I do now? Trim off the soft parts? Wait for it to dry a bit? Thanks for your help.