Duck and Potato Patch

[DuckyDonna]

Oh yum I love sweet taters I think I’ll do that!!

It's so much easier than white potatoes where you have to keep adding dirt. I got a 6-pack of the worst looking sweet potato plants at Walmart last year. They were 1/2 dead and they woudn't even give me a discount on them! I put 3 in each bin thinking that they'd die for sure since they were almost there anyway. I guess it's all that good duck water that brought them to life. I may try doing my own slips this year but I haven't done so well with that.

 

[Miss Lydia]

I didn’t even know Walmart had the plants I’ll def check that out. Don’t remember seeing any at Lowes.

 

[fur-mum]

I didn't realize peppers and eggplants were nightshades. No one told my birdies either. They mowed down the pepper plants.

 

[Cayuga momma]

I didn’t even know Walmart had the plants I’ll def check that out. Don’t remember seeing any at Lowes.

I saw them at our TSC last year.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I have not let my ducks into my garden. I can say that mine LOVE tomatoes, but I am always careful not to give them any stems.

To my horror, my duckies discovered where those tasty red balls came from and devoured ten full grown tomato plants in one evening, leafs, stems, ripe and unripe tomatoes down to the roots and had no signs of sickness or even upset stomach.
That's why i am asking, i know tomato and potato plants smell similar and they might try to eat them.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

If they were mine, I wouldn’t do it. Especially if they are shut in the area with the potato plants. They might get too bored and try eating it. My ducks have a half acre to roam on and they still chose to eat azaleas that made them wildly sick. They won’t eat it anymore but I wouldn’t risk it.

The duckies have a lot of land to roam around the house and i am planning to extend the fencing even further this year. I was just thinking whether to create the potato patch inside the fenced area or outside. If inside my little gardeners could enjoy eating the stink-bugs off the plants and fertilize the potatoes. - Yes, those pesky stink bugs suck on tomato- and potato- plants! Fortunately my duck love to eat them.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

If you do decide to let them in there, be careful once the potatoes start coming in. Any that grow above soil and are exposed to the sun develope those green patches on them which are toxic even to humans. I have thought of sending in the ducks in late spring to get the bugs and grasshoppers out of the potatoes. My gut feeling is they won’t disturb established plants but I have no experience doing it.there is a chance the plants are toxic because potatoes are the only thing we can grow that the deer do not mow down.

Exactly! Deer doesn't eat potato plants! Fenced in the fruit-trees we had planted last year and they even reached through the fence until i electrified those. With everything else you stand no chance here in the area.

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

The nightshade family are all toxic to most animals and people. That family includes potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, tomatillos, and, I believe, thorn apple (datura—usually seem as a large weed with very large, white, trumpet-shaped flowers). Affects range mild to lethal, though the fruits of tomato, pepper, eggplant, and tomatillo plants are not toxic. Potatoes are toxic if they are exposed to the sun during growth and develop green coloring. I once read (here maybe) of someone who pulled a bunch of tomato horn worms off of his tomato vines and fed them to his chickens, who devoured them, but were all dead the next day. So I’m not sure that eating bugs and caterpillars that have been eating nightshades is safe.

Good point! Those critters my store the toxins in their bodies! On the other hand, many of the night-shades have developed their poisons for their fruits to be eaten by birds only! For example the (chillie) peppers taste hot to us and other mammals, but birds enjoy them without pain. Our mammal digestion track usually destroys plant seeds, where on the other hand the birds digestion leaves them intact and the seeds get an additional supply of fertilizer when dropped somewhere. - The plant's could not expect that we crazy humans would develop a taste for insane hot food…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

Have you thought about growning sweet potatoes? I've got a big bin made out of a piece of fencing and some black cloth around it. It's right next to the duck run and the leaves and vines grow right up and over the bins and make great fun for the ducks and produced a great crop for us! I've still got a whole box of them left.

Those leaves are totally edible for ducks and humans and have lots of nice bugs on them for the ducks to eat. I dump the duck's water buckets on them every night when I clean their water.
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That's what my wife said too!!! - She loves sweet potatoes, whereas i (saying it politely) dislike them. So i think i keep "my" potatoes where the ducks can't go and hope they survive the stink-bugs and plant some sweet potatoes for the wife (and the ducks) inside the fenced area…

 

[WannaBeHillBilly]

I didn't realize peppers and eggplants were nightshades. No one told my birdies either. They mowed down the pepper plants.

As said, some of the night-shade family try to avoid being eaten by mammals (humans) but want to be eaten by birds. And peppers - my ducks eat everything sprinkled with hot peppers…