So what did I find in my local park? I'll tell you what -- and who are the winners of my foraging mystery contest! I've got a few reflections, too. Can you relate?

I'm a forager, no doubt. I'll pick up almost anything I find that seems useful one way or another. Sometimes it takes a lot of expertise to identify the right plant or mushroom, or the consequences could be severe. Other times, it's easy. And sometimes it's downright surprising or funny what I find. And sometimes I pick up a few lessons along the way, too.

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The Challenge

To recap, I was on a walk through one of my neighborhood parks a couple weeks ago. I saw something unexpected along the sidewalk and had to check it out. I made a contest with two chances for prizes. Here's the original post: What Did I Forage? A Quick, Easy Contest for $5 SBD! Let's have some fun! .

There it is, just as I saw it. Lying next to the sidewalk.

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What Is It?

It happens every autumn - I get so focused on mushrooms sprouting anywhere and everywhere! Every kind is interesting, even if I can't eat it. So I thought this might be a mushroom. But then it looked like a stone, too. So I picked it up.

It turned out to be -- a potato! Not an old baked potato, but a small, uncooked Russet potato. Look at those cracks in it. That thing hit the sidewalk hard!

In my contest, most guesses were that it was a mushroom. I have been finding lots of mushrooms and will be posting about them and eating some of them, too, but not this time. @dswigle hoped it was a Box Turtle. I would have enjoyed that! And I would not eat a box turtle. They need all the help they can get!

Here are the foraging sleuths who guessed right: @builderofcastles, @ewkaw, @chamudiliyanage, @freegardens, @progressivechef, @liliana.duarte. I gave each a number based on this order in the list and used Google's random number generator. And here is the random winner: @progressivechef!

Congratulations on being a lucky foraging sleuth, @progressivechef! Check your wallet!

Two people - @karenb54 and @chefsteve - thought it was a baked potato - close, but they got ruled out of the main contest by their adjective. They did get that it was a potato, though. So I put them in their own contest for $1 SBD - and here is the random winner:

Congratulations @chefsteve! Check your wallet! --- PS: @chefsteve is an even bigger winner, since I messed up and transferred over $2.50, lol. Them's the breaks, as they say! Enjoy those extra winnings! ; )

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What Did I Do With It?

Now the question is what to do with it! As a forager, I'm always thinking about how I can use something I find -- or what I should do with it, if it's something that's not part of the natural environment. Should I leave it there? Should I pick it up and put it in a trash can somewhere? Should I take it home?

If it was a stone, I would move it somewhere that the folks mowing the park wouldn't hit it. If it was a mushroom, I'd probably leave it there, since it's along a sidewalk where more people could appreciate it. But a potato?

I have eaten potatoes (and onions, sweet corn, and other produce) that have fallen out of trucks going from farm fields to processing plants. But this little potato was out there in the sun long enough to turn green in parts.

The green parts of potatoes aren't good to eat, because they have high levels of solanine. That's the compound that makes some of the wild relatives of potatoes, tomatoes, and eggplants (all in the Solanum genus) too toxic to eat.

The high levels of solanine in the green, under-ripe berries of this Black Nightshade (Solanum nigrum) are why I eat only the dark black berries. That's the same solanine that makes potatoes green when they have gotten too much sun.

So I hatched a plan. I was going to save this potato and plant it in the spring! All I had to do was put this little spud in a paper sack out where I keep my other potatoes in storage for the winter. It just has to keep for 3 months. And if it started to sprout, that's ok. It would be ready to plant in early spring.

Even shriveled potatoes with long sprouts can still produce a lot of potatoes. This big tray of fingerling potatoes on the left came from those sorry-looking potatoes on the right!

The trouble is that store-bought potatoes are often treated with chemicals to keep them from sprouting. Instead, those potatoes just shrivel up. That makes the potatoes hard to sprout for planting. And what about those cracks?

When I harvest potatoes from my garden, sometimes I accidentally cut them with my spading fork. So I eat them first. Or, when I set my potatoes in the shade to dry out before storing them for the winter, the surface nicks and cuts heal over - and those potatoes keep just fine. So I tried some surgery on my little foraged potato.

But the poor potato had been through too much. Those cracks from hitting the ground left deep wounds that led to infection. Poor potato! Fortunately, I compost all my kitchen waste. That means none of it is really wasted. It provides nutrients and organic matter to keep my gardens productive. I toss all my kitchen waste into a container with a lid, and then put it into my compost pile.

That's where I put my rotten little potato. I'm not worried about disease spreading into my garden, because the major diseases (early and late blight) aren't the same as what's rotting this little spud. And I have pretty good potato cultivation practices.

I may not be able to eat this potato or plant it to grow potatoes next spring. But in my compost pile, it will turn into good organic matter and nutrients for my future gardens and crops! That's a hard-working little potato!

Of the folks that ventured a guess about what I did with my foraging find, only 2 had the right answer. @ewkaw and @progressivechef know me so well - they thought that I would eat that little potato. If it hadn't turned green from sitting in the sun, that would have been the answer, for sure, lol! Here's who had the right answer: @chamudiliyanage and @chefsteve.

And here is the random winner: @chamudiliyanage! Congratulations @chamudiliyanage! Check your wallet!

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What Do You Think?

I may not have been able to use my foraged potato directly. But it's going to be useful in my compost and future gardens. Three Steemit folks shared $7.50 SBD in prizes, too! That's a powerful potato! And maybe this post will make more than $7.50 SBD so I come out ahead, too. Either way, I got some fun out of the little spud with my contest - and I hope you did, too!

• What would you have done with this little potato?
• What odd things have you found in a local park?
• Have you eaten food that you found?
• Do you have a compost pile?
• Do you grow potatoes?

I really do want to know. I appreciate and enjoy getting to know people here on Steemit. I hope you are getting out to enjoy nature in your neighborhood or other interesting places.

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Haphazard Homestead

foraging, gardening, nature, simple living close to the land
All content is 100% Haphazard Homestead!My YouTube channel: Haphazard Homestead