Spuds in the Living Room

I have garden fever.  A long winter, coupled with a cold, cold Spring has left me with an obsession with gardening. This year, I wanted to try something new: potatoes.

I've never grown potatoes before. I had some potatoes in my pantry left over from my trips to the farmer's market this past summer. They had some pretty good size eyes growing on them so I scoured YouTube looking for instructions on how to plant potatoes. To my surprise I discovered that you can plant potatoes in containers.

Since I don't have the patience to wait until June for it to get warmer outside, I decided to plant mine in containers and place them in front of a south facing window. It just so happens the south facing window is in my living room.

I found these really cool containers at Home Depot. The covers on these containers can be turned upside down and used as drip pans. I drilled some holes in the sides and bottom of the containers to let the soil "breathe".  Then I filled them up with about four inches of organic potting soil and placed five seed potatoes in each (and just in the nick of time too -- the "eyes" were getting pretty long on these).

It didn't take long for the shoots from the eyes to start sprouting green leaves. When they were about four inches over the soil, I put more soil in the container to cover them up. So they grew four more inches. And then I put some more in ... and some more. Boy these really started growing fast! I swear if you stand over the container and watch them you can almost see them growing.

Eventually you will have the entire container filled with soil. The shoots will start getting bigger leaves on the stems to soak up more sunshine--which increases the rate at which they grow--which is kindof scary because they are already growing at an alarming rate. Auch mein Gott! What have I done?



The shoots should, in theory, eventually start sprouting roots which will grow potatoes on them. Problem is I won't get to find out if it worked or not until the middle of July.


I have one suggestion if you're thinking about doing this: at one point the plant part of the potato got so big they just flopped over. If I were to do this again I would put tomato cages around each plant. I was able to get some in there and "retrofit" them, but it should have done it right from the start.

On a side note, when I went to buy the tomato cages the lady who checked me out was looking at me kindof funny. She said, "Are your tomatoes ready for cages already?" because it's a bit early to buy tomato cages. I said, "No, they're not for my tomatoes, they're for the potatoes growing my living room." I think she was still a bit confused. It could also have been because it was SNOWING outside and who in their right mind needs tomato cages when it's this blasted cold outside! (Ok, I feel better.)

Eventually I will get to move the containers from my living room to my back patio where they belong and can soak up the sunshine and get some nourishing rain. If this actually works I will be astounded. Any volunteers to help me carry them out?

Happy "Spring" everybody!