I have several Irish potatoes (white, baking, Idaho) that have several "sprouts". I have never planted Irish potatoes. Is it too early to plant those "eyes" now? I am in NE Mississippi (zone 8b) and we typically will continue to have frost (hopefully light) at least until mid-March.

Hey Ken, I've been planting my sprouted potatoes in the school garden since January. The kids think it is a small miracle (which it is!) that a hunk of a potato with an eye can make a whole new plant. You should see their eyes when we dig up the new potatoes, too. Last fall we grew purple ones.

They are fine with a little light frost (we did have one night) until they start putting up leaves, then you'd have to cover them. Mine here at home are 8in. tall plants by now.

As they start to grow you'll want to 'hill' the soil up around the stems of the plants to encourage them to make more tubers.

Thanks, Elaine. I have several "potato" bags that I use for everything other than potatoes, LOL, so I think I will partially empty a couple of those and put the Irish potatoes in them. I also am rooting sweet potatoes, and will use my other two bags for those. This week is mild - thank you God - so I should be able to at least get started with a couple of those bags and then plant the rest in a couple of weeks. This weekend and next week is turning cold again.

Ken

drdawg/Ken...
I plant potatoes here long before the last frost and they do just fine. They might get nipped back by a hard frost or freeze but normally they bounce right back just fine.

From the ATP planting guide it looks to me like in your area you're in the prime time-frame for setting out your Irish spuds:
http://garden.org/apps/calenda...

As for the sweetpotatoes you better wait til there is NO chance of frost and the ground should be permanently warm. Plenty of time to grow more slips between now and then!

Shoe

Good deal. I put two cubes, each with a shoot (total of four) in two bags, leaving approximately 8" of soil on the bottom and covering the sections with about 2" of soil. I will just keep adding soil as the plants grow. These were my smallest "potato" bags. I have two more bags, twice the size, and will put 3 cubed sections in each of those, doing the same with soil as I did before. I will put my rooted sweet potatoes in the ground in my raised garden, but that may be a month from now, depending on forecast.

Thanks, Shoe