In the Spring, I grew three different kinds of potatoes. I have Red Norlands, Yukon Gold and Adirondack Blue. These I grew through the Spring and were harvested in June. Some those Red Norlands became part of my Summer Growing Experiment. As Fall came, so did my storage potatoes’ life come to an end. With several potatoes past there prime, what is a person like me going to do with winter rapidly approaching. If you said stick them in a pot under your grow lights then you are correct. This is a tale about the start of my indoor potato experiment.

What are the goals of the indoor potato experiment?

Now you know how I ended up with it, lets see what I want to get out of it.

First, I am not looking to get eating potatoes from this experiment. If they happen great, but that is not the goal. What I would like are to get my next round of seed potatoes. That is my goal because I am not sure my grower’s pots are going to be deep enough. Of all my indoor pots they are the deepest so they get to be the pot for this madness.

I also had to get my growing rig ready for any potential water overflows. This is a big plant, in a big pot for indoors so I want to make sure I can contain an epic watering fail.

What a marvel a trash bag and some zip ties can pull off. It is even pretty rigid. This should hold me over until I can find some pot plates big enough for my pots.

I also rearranged my lights. Instead of two shop lights per shelf, I will do four. This should allow me to use the middle shelf as supports for the potato plant. I think this is smart. The famous last words of all foolish actions. It will also dumps a ton of light on the potatoes. If this experiment fails, it will be because of lighting. I’m just not sure I will be able to get enough on it even with the reinforcements.

The Planting

As I stated earlier, I am using some grower’s pots I had laying around and some potting soil forgotten in the garage.

Unfortunately, these are not going to be organic. Even in the slightest, as the potting mix is Miracle Grow I got on discount. Not really a big deal but is a slightly different sort of thing than my outdoor garden.

I decided two potatoes were more than enough per pot. Honestly, that may be too many but it is a wide pot. One thing to note on the potatoes. I actually kept all the eyes on the potatoes. I want several smaller potatoes so that I would not have to cut them all up when it comes springtime.

Here are my potatoes next to the herbs, I am trying to transplant. My kitchen is quite the disaster area. I really wish this was the exception but I am always doing 20 things.

This was about two weeks ago so I am eagerly awaiting the sprouts to come up from the soil.

That is pretty much it for the experiment. I have no idea what I am doing with potatoes indoors. This could become my new thing as my seedlings will need to be started at about the time these potatoes finish up. At least the timing looks good for it.