10 Extraordinarily Different Uses for Potatoes
by Louie Jerome on Mar 20, 2008 with 22 Comments
Potatoes are full of potassium, vitamin C and iron, and they are good to eat. But they also have many other uses around the home and garden.
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Treat Warts
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Soothe Burns
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Remove Berry Stains
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Remove Salt from Soups
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Compost for Potted Plants
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Clean Silverware
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Grow Geraniums
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Cold or Hot Compress
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Arrange Flowers
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Face Mask
Common warts can be treated by rubbing them with a piece of raw potato. The potato is very high in potassium and vitamin C which promotes healing. This should be done every day until the wart has gone.
We all get minor burns on hands and arms while cooking food in the kitchen. Gently touch a minor burn with a piece of cut potato. It will soothe it and take out the sting.
If you have been picking berries, or making a pie with them, your finger tend to get stained. A piece of raw potato rubbed on to them will take off the stain. If the problem is really bad, dip the cut potato into lemon juice before using it.
If you are making soups and stews and find that you have added a little too much salt, add a cut up potato and it will absorb the salt. This is a scientifically explained tipped. The salt enters the cells of the potato by a process called osmosis.
Chopped potatoes make good compost for plants. Chop the potato up and put it into the hole before you plant flowering plants like geraniums and bizzie lizzies.
Clean silverware by soaking for an hour in water that you have boiled your potatoes in. Remove the potatoes first, of course.
To grow new geraniums take a potato and cut a very long, thin hole in it. Push the geranium stem into the potato and plant the whole thing. The potato will give the new plant everything it needs to grow strong.
Potatoes hold the heat and the cold very well, so they make good compresses. Heat a potato, wrap it in a cloth and use as a hot compress. Do the same with a cold one that has been in the freezer.
To hold small flower arrangements without the need to buy that expensive florist’s foam, cut a potato in half length ways. Place with the cut side down in a container and poke hole in the surface so that you can insert flower stems into it.
Take a little mashed potato and add lemon juice and a teaspoon of milk. This makes a great face mask which you can put on, leave for twenty minutes and then rinse off. Your skin will feel great.
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Published in: Homemaking
Darlene McFarlane | Mar 20, 2008 | Reply
Great tips. Thanks, Louie
Dee Huff | Mar 20, 2008 | Reply
Great ideas, and they’re good to eat too!
Lucy Lockett | Mar 20, 2008 | Reply
I learned a thing or two about Potatoes! The face mask sounds interesting.
Judy Sheldon | Mar 20, 2008 | Reply
Thanks, Louie, great ideas. I love the tips about plant food.
Cassandra Davis | Mar 20, 2008 | Reply
I love all of them! Potatoes are awesome!!!
Mark Swenson | Mar 20, 2008 | Reply
If you ever break a light bulb off it the socket just press a potatoe into it (but make sure the switch is off or the lamp unpluged) and unscrew the broken bulb.
louie jerome | Mar 21, 2008 | Reply
Thanks for the comments everyone. Mark, I have heard of the light bulb one, but I am wary of using it because the potato will make the light socket wet and it wouldn’t be safe to replace the bulb and switch on until it was dry.
IcyCucky | Mar 21, 2008 | Reply
Wow, great uses, love all of the ideas that you listed here
L. Grant | Mar 21, 2008 | Reply
Great tips! Incredible uses for potatoes.
(osmosis only applies to water, not salt)
Tom | Mar 21, 2008 | Reply
To cure an infected cut in a few hours,
1. Cut a potato.
2. Scrape enough of the potato to cover the wound.
( Scrapings are better than a slice.)
3. Apply it to the wound with a bandage.
louie jerome | Mar 21, 2008 | Reply
Osmosis does apply to water but also to the salt dissolved in it. The water with salt is drawn into the cells of the potato. That’s how it is removed from the soup. Try it and you will see.
Anne Lyken-Garner | Mar 21, 2008 | Reply
These are very useful tips Louie,the face mask one seems to be a very interesting one to try.
Alexa Gates | Mar 21, 2008 | Reply
great tips! they’re very useful!
Gerlaine | Mar 21, 2008 | Reply
Wonderful, I am excited to see how these work. I will keep in mind.
Meri Jeffrey | Mar 22, 2008 | Reply
Thanx a bunch for the great tips!
Funkynorm | Mar 24, 2008 | Reply
Or you could…..
Boil em, Mash em, Stick em in a stew! (Lord of the Rings)
Lei Vylet | Mar 24, 2008 | Reply
I didn’t know potatoes can do some of these tips.
But i was interested more on the face mask *wink* *wink*
Jaimie Oliver | Mar 27, 2008 | Reply
Try wrapping them in Denso Tape then whacking them onto the bbq for half an hour. Cushty.
Bunty | Mar 29, 2008 | Reply
I love potatoes and eat lots of them everyday and have been told that’s why I’m fat.
Is this true or is my husband just being cruel ?
Ruby Hawk | Mar 30, 2008 | Reply
These uses are interesting, especialy the facial.
Youjiao Shan | Apr 2, 2008 | Reply
I like potato very much.But I don’t know so many amazing uses,it’s great!
Roslin | Jun 17, 2008 | Reply
A bit of raw potato with some salt on it is also a quick cure for heartburn.