I don't know much about gardening except that weeds are naughty.

However when it comes to growing things I seem to be something of an expert without ever even trying.

A little while ago I bought some potatoes from the supermarket and after using half the bag for my dinner (I like potatoes), I put them in the cupboard. Sometime later the same month I was trying to find some food. On opening the potato cupboard I was confronted with a gruesome but oddly compelling site - my potatoes had started a family.

The youngsters hadn't been born yet but their umbilicals were well on the way and various shoots were weaving around the cupboard's interior in a desperate search for daylight.

I took them out and binned them.

But if I had planted them (a foot or so under some mud) they would have grown into a beautiful bushy plant and later that year I could have eaten momma and pappa potato's children - even better than that, they would have been free.

So next time you have some potatoes which are threatening to go off, dig a hole and bury them - you may be surprised what you might find in a few months time.