I recieved some seed potato in the mail and none of them have any eyes showing yet. I see the little "dimples" where the eyes will form, but they haven't started sprouting yet. Is there any problem in planting them like they are now, with no eyes sprouting? Yes, bury them 6" deep with the eyes on top and the "dimples" (which are the eyes) will sprout and grow. How fast? Depends on the weather. I also have some spuds from last year that have some long eyes growing. Some are 4 inches long. What's the best way to plant these? Should I just stick them in the ground with the 4 inch eye and burry them, Yes, bury them 6" deep too and they will grow and will likely pop up a bit faster than the others. But they will all catch up quickly and you won't be able to tell the difference. This is not to say the pre-sprouting is bad or wrong or anything else, just not needed unless you prefer to do it and have the time. However, to be clear, seed potatoes are not intended to be buried whole unless they are extremely tiny. ;) Chunking the seed potatoes (as Grandad describes above) is quite beneficial in production and allowing them a couple of days for the cut edges to air dry before planting is also quite beneficial. Hope this helps. Dave

I agree, Pat - the prices are insane!! We've really had to cut back on most things, including fuel, and I'm almost dreading the time when DH returns to work and has to drive every day! I kicked him when he bought the BIG Dodge diesel pickup a few years back, and I'm kicking him harder now. :D Luckily, we also have a little Plymouth Neon which he'll probably need to use during the week. Wish we could afford a hybrid or a (species...LOL) electric car. I have no idea about veggies in pots, but I'm sure Westelle does! Hang in there, and try to stay cool, Pat! Brenda

To me I tend to go for total plant volume over strictly counting eyes, but it sort of depends on the particular plant. In this case two larger eyes would be the winner to me over any number of small eyes. Sometimes when a hosta is stressed out it will overcompensate and put out a ton of eyes. On a large hosta like Blue Hawaii it should be multiplying fairly slowly, with the eyes getting fatter and fatter before putting out new ones. If one has a bunch of eyes I bet there is something going on with the crown, either some kind of rot or some other kind of damage that happened to it along the way. In time the larger eyes will multiply naturally on their own over a bunch of small ones and will often be the larger and more robust and mature looking plant quicker than a bunch of small ones. I think of it as quality vs quantity. On the other hand if it is a fast multiplying plant then more eyes would be the way to go over a couple larger ones as they will catch up to the larger ones quick enough. The other question I get asked sometimes is if you have nothing but single eye plants and some are flowering but others are not, which one do you pick? The flowering one will appear to put lots of energy into the flower and won't send up any more leaves from that eye but the one that isn't flowering will continue to flush out new leaves so may seem the better choice. To me, however, I would take the flowering one because after it flowers it will work on setting new dormant buds which become more eyes next year. It won't do much this summer but next year it will be larger than the singles that didn't flower this year. Just my take on it :) Chris

Looks like a winning combination to me,and the mini's look great too. Jean