Denis Schwarcz

I wasn't sure what category should I post this in, so sorry if it isn't the correct one.


Before winter, I had bought a lot of potatoes and kept them in the basement. I thought we would use most of them by spring and hoped they wouldn't go bad or sprout even when it gets a bit warmer. Unfortunately, that is not the case and now I have over 100kg of potatoes that have already sprouted. Now I am not sure what to do with them. I did plant some of them, but I don't have room to plant them all.

From what I've read, they are safe to eat as long as you remove the sprouts. But is this true even if the sprouts are quite big already (see pic)?

Are there any products that could be made with them (ideally without any expensive equipment)? What about fermented or pickled potatoes, does anybody have experience with this? I saw a couple recipes, but they usually require to keep them in the fridge and consume quickly. I do have a lot of empty mason jars, so if they are still edible and I could somehow store them in these at room temperature, that would be great.

Although I don't have animals yet, I will have ducks in about a month. It will probably be already too late this time, but for future occasions: would it be okay to feed the potatoes (cooked and sprouts removed) to ducks (of course in moderation)?

I know they can be cooked and frozen as well, but I don't have that much freezer space.

In case it's best not to eat them anymore, can you give me a bit of advice on how to compost them? Would cooking them before composting make the process faster (it would at least prevent them from growing further)? My current compost heap is not that big and if I put them all in it, it would become the majority of it. So I am thinking of composting them separately in a new heap. I am not sure what the nitrogen to carbon ratio of potatoes is (one source said 10 to 1). Any idea on what materials to add to achieve a good C/N ratio? To be honest, I hate adding potatoes to the compost. They always get stuck on the compost fork and they often roll down from the pile...

Thanks for any advice!

Thanks for the answers!

Jake Esselstyn wrote:If they have free run of the place they'll develop favorite spots and turn those in to mud pits.

Is this necessarily a problem, though? I am thinking, that if they do develop these mud pits, I could adjust accordingly and grow plants that do well in those kinds of environments.

Dorothy Pohorelow wrote:...we set up a series of irrigation ditches that we dumped those tubs into each time.  All the water and duck stuff went into the trenches and boy did my friend have a nice garden.

Nice idea! I know from researching that ducks make the water messy quite fast. My plan was to use the water for plant irrigation with a watering can/buckets and leave some around the bathtub. Then grow some plants in it that they can eat. But these trenches sound like a more practical and effective solution.

One problem with it is that I would like to have the tub in an area under trees (I guess it would be good, that it is shaded, right?). How deep should these trenches ideally be? I am not sure how deep (or if at all) can I dig to not damage the tree's roots.
Will the regular application of water/duck manure seal these trenches (like a pond)? I kind of like that, but won't it be bad over time, that the water/manure mixture will be sitting there anaerobically?

I would like to raise 2-3 female Indian Runner ducks, but first I want to make sure that I can provide them with a suitable environment, so they can live a happy life.

I am planning on letting them run around the whole yard freely and lock them in a wooden house at night (to protect them from predators). The yard is around 1500m2 (around 0.4 acre) and is fenced from the sides. Is it okay to let them run in the whole area?

Is the wooden house on the pics okay for 2-3 ducks? Or should I make it bigger (there is a similar "room" to the left of it, I would just have to cut a hole between them)? I think it was used for geese (or chickens) many years ago. Of course I will clean it first and put hay on the floor. How long should I keep them locked in the house at night?

They would have a bathtub with water if they want to swim/play in it (although it's a bit shallow, around 40cm) and other water containers for drinking.

Do they try to get through fences, or not really? For example, if I wanted to fence some parts of the vegetable garden, is it okay if there is a 20cm (~8 inch) gap in it? Or will they try to crawl through it, like for example a cat?


I have no experience in raising farm animals at all (I only have cats).

Thanks in advance for any answers/tips!

I was offered cut grass/weeds from my neighbor today. He sprays his area every year. He usually lets his grass grow quite big, then cuts it and sprays afterwards. He said that the hay/grass he's giving me isn't treated yet.

Do you think it would be safe to use this kind of hay to mulch around plants? Or is it likely that the plants will "suck up" the chemicals from the previous year? If not around plants, do you think it would be okay to use it for walking paths (but still close to some plants)? If not would it be at least OK to use around trees?

I guess it's not a very strong product though, as his yard is full of weeds each year and there are multiple species (for example dandelions, nettle etc.).

Thanks in advance for any replies!

Wow, thank you very much for all the replies!

I am sorry I haven't been answering sooner, but unfortunately I had very little free time in the past week.

First a bit about the general climate and location:
- There are around 5 months of frost free days (~ May 15th - ~October 15th).
- I think there is good sun exposure - it is on an elevated (200m above sea level) place with no huge trees/buildings that would cast shade on the property.
- There is bad water availability - no well, but I don't know how much it rains. So I guess keeping most of the trees to retain moisture is a pretty good idea.
- The vineyard is located as a part of a bigger vineyard (multiple vineyards around) near a village. I am lucky (or at least I think so ), that this exact vineyard is the "last" and after it begins a forest.
- There are definitely no productive vines on it, the place looks like a small jungle .

Looks like black locust has some uses, would be nice if it turned out to be it .

Based on your recommendations and my own thoughts/feelings, I will go slowly about it. I like the idea of keeping the "evolved nature" alive and slowly "tweaking it". I will observe the land and try to identify more plants as the seasons go by. If I'll have enough time, I will cut off a couple trees to let light in and plant some edible perennials (I would like to give wild strawberries a shot). But I have abandoned the idea of cutting the whole place down (which wasn't very appealing to me since the beginning). I will also give the mushrooms a shot, but first I have to do my research about how to go about it.

It seems like this idea looks interesting to multiple members here. I will take more general photos of the place and try to keep you updated about my progress .

So I just learned that my family owns a 1/10 acre vineyard that has been abandoned for 10-20 years. Nobody cared about it and it is now overgrown by:
- young Maples - probably field maple (Acer campestre)? It has nice tasty, sweet blossoms.
- Probably some kind of rose (see attached pic)
- Corydalis / Hollowroot ? - (see attached pics) - There is quite a lot of these and I've read they their tubers are used in TCM and are hallucinogenic - if anybody could confirm and maybe share some experience on how they are used, that would be great.
- UnknownA - I am not sure the 2 pictures are from the same plant.
- UnknownB
- Dogwood or Cherry - there are multiple cherry trees nearby, so I guess these will all be cherries as well? Do they grow in similar environments?

I only used the PlantNet app to identify these plants, so it may not be accurate.

If the presence of these plants tell you anything about the soil quality, I would be very glad if you share it.

I have received a permission to do whatever I like with the place and I am thinking of transforming this into a more edible landscape (like a small food forest). But I am not yet sure on how to go about it. Should I just slowly replace the trees little by little with edible (fruit/nut) trees/shrubs/perennials/fungi? Or would you rather cut down most of them and "build from the ground up"? Do you have any recommendations on what edible plants could grow well in an environment like this? Do you think strawberries could be successful here?

Thanks in advance for any replies!

Thanks for all the answers! It gave me encouragement, I'll give it a try.

So I am trying out different ways to start a bed. I read that one of the possible methods is turning sod and planting on top of that (the theory was, that the grass won't grow (or at least not as aggressively) and the turned (covered) grass will decompose and provide nutrients for the soil microbiology).

What I have done is turned over grass - I slid a shovel under it and flipped it over, trying to take just little soil out - so now the grass is downside and soil is upside. Then I covered the whole area with tree leaves (some of them already started decomposing and contained fungi). Afterwards I put cardboard on them weighted with bricks, mostly to protect the leaves from wind (so they stay in place).

But now I am not yet totally sure what to do. I have some soil that was left over from excavation work, which is mixed layer, but mostly deeper level soil, so probably not very good to directly plant in. But would it be okay to put maybe like 1-2 inch of this soil on top of the cardboard, mix it with some compost (or maybe more leaves) and use a bit of potting mix in areas where I will be planting? Or maybe I could just put small mounds of potting mix on top of the cardboard and plant inside of those (and leave the cardboard as ground cover/mulch)?

My available resources: the mentioned poor soil, quite a bit of leaves, old logs (some have fungi on them), compost, some potting mix (not enough to cover whole bed). Any ideas (ideally using these resources) are welcome.

Thanks for any replies in advance!

So I've found a couple T5 lights laying around at my house and from what I've read, they could be good for starting seedlings (they are 6500K daylight spectrum). I've never tried starting seeds with a grow light and thought it would be nice to give it a shot. I've researched a bit about grow lights on the internet, but I am still not totally sure about how many plants I can put to grow under them. From one source I've read that you should have 100w for each plant. If that is true, then I could theoretically grow 2 seedlings under them. The problem is (or maybe isn't), that the tubes are quite long (around 1.5m = ~5ft). I have 2 lamps with 2 tubes each. Each tube is 50w and gives 4500lm, so together it is 200w and 18000lm.

My questions are:
Do you think it would be possible to grow seedlings under these lights?
If so, how many seeds can I grow under them? If only 2, won't there be a lot of wasted light (given that the tubes are 1.5m (~5ft) long and the seed tray will be like 10cm (~4in) wide)?
Should I mount the lights like 4 tubes in a single row or 2 tubes in 2 rows?

Thanks in advance for any replies!