I am trying this for the second time. Towards the end of last winter, I planted a couple of potato plants in a large trash can under a grow light. The plants are beautiful—so much so that I'm surprised that people don't grow potatoes as decorative plants. The leaves are rich green, and the plant keeps growing new leaves and shoots, so once it has sprouted, growth is rapid. Anyhow, on my last try, the plant grew huge. Perhaps due to the broader radius of a grow light, its shoots, resulting in new branches and leaves, went everywhere, quickly filling up the space. After more than five months, the plant showed no sign of slowing, so I wondered if the foliage would ever start to die out, as in a typical potato plant grown outdoors. When planted outdoors, the foliage begins dying off around the same time we start getting some cold nights, which wasn't happening indoors. So, while I would ordinarily wait for the foliage to die out and then harvest the potatoes a week or so after that, I questioned whether this would occur indoors. Finally, finding a couple of leaves that had started to turn color, I cut away the rest of the foliage and waited a week and a half. My harvest consisted of about ten potatoes, the largest of which was less than the size of a standard marble. So, I am trying again. This time, I planted far deeper than the last time. Unsurprisingly, the sprouts took a long time to find their way to the surface. When the two plants grew about a foot and a half high, I added soil around them, leaving only a few inches on the surface, repeating that two more times. Now, the soil is within a foot of the top of the growing container so that I can do that only once more. I will try to be patient and see what happens. The plants are beautiful. The practicality of growing potatoes under a grow light would be questionable. There is no actual question to it since it doesn't make sense. Even if I could harvest potatoes of a normal size, the cost of running the grow light every day versus the cost of buying a bag of potatoes in the grocery store wouldn't be comparable.
My friend who owns a greenhouse once gave me a big tub, some soil, and a bunch of starter potatoes. They never grew. I don't know that I've ever had a potato from a farmer's market or a roadside stand...they've all been from the product section. I wonder if I'd notice a difference like I do with tomatoes. Regarding their beauty: if I recall correctly, the foliage for sweet potatoes is a beautiful purple.
I’ve been watching a YouTube where a man grows potatoes in 30 Ltr pot plant black pots ( outside ) he gets a very high yield in a short time ..he gave tips like pruning the plants / before harvesting / cutting off any flowers He only plants 2 potatoes per pot …amazing how many he gets in return .. when they are ready for harvesting he simply tips them into a wheelbarrow to sort / remove the potatoes I’ve already bought 2x 28 Ltr pots to try the same thing after summer ..can’t get 30 Ltr pots here I might try fining the same person and add video if I can
I've done pretty well with potatoes outdoors, growing them in lawn bags, buckets, and straw bales. The lawn bags work best.
A lesson on potatoes. There are determinate and indeterminate potatoes just as there are with tomatoes. Determinate varieties are generally recommended for containers or for short season places like where I live as they make one "batch" of potatoes then begin to die back. The indeterminate varieties continue to grow and generate "layers of potatoes as you mound them. Determinates do not require mounding or hilling. See below: https://www.backyarddigs.com/gardening/determinate-vs-indeterminate-potatoes/
Home grown potatoes are the best! They taste remarkably better than store potatoes, in my opinion. We grew Kennebec variety potatoes. It takes time to cut and plant the seed potatoes and dig them up but it is so worth it! We use to plant rows and rows of potatoes. I haven't had home grown potatoes for years but I can still remember the taste of the potatoes.
My dad planted potatoes in 5-7 forty-acre plots when I was a kid. Although he alternated between different crops, potatoes were the one on which he made the most money. You don't pay much attention to the individual plants when you have whole fields of potatoes. Once planted, they didn't demand much upkeep until it was time to harvest them. We would spend hours picking out potato bugs from one field to another because he didn't use chemicals, but I think that was about it. Maybe he did other stuff that I didn't pay attention to.
We no longer grow as many potatoes as we once did when the children were home. We simply don't eat as much any more. Now we grow mostly the types we cannot buy in the store. My wife absolutely loves French Fingerling potatoes. They taste great, store well, and are pretty as well. We often start them in containers indoors and move them outside when the weather warms.
I have grown volunteer potatoes in my raised beds. I dump potato peelings on the beds all winter (compost-it-urself), and this past year it paid off with a bunch of unexpected little taters. I still have one volunteer out there but it got a really late start and I don't expect any spuds from it. The potatoes I started from seed last year and planted in grow bags didn't make much at all. I had trouble figuring out the watering situation in those bags. It gets so hot here that they dry out really fast so I won't do that again.
We aren't growing any this year. May not grow any at all since I don't eat many and Florida is not a good place for storing them.
I’ve got bags with the flap inspection flap on the side but they to dried out an hour after giving them a full bucket of water I’ve got spuds everywhere in my my garden cause I bury veggie scraps @Beth Gallagher
Same here @Don Alaska I buy a 2 kg bag of reduced carb spuds once every 6 weeks or so…I’ve got a little creamy almost submarine shape spuds growing that someone gave me as seed potatoes….. that’s what I’d like to experiment with ….i already have with those mesh potato growing bags ( they dry out way to quickly ) need watering twice a day ….anyway I only got handfuls of tiny spuds …and I’m not sure if I should buy “ seed” potatoes ? TBH I don’t even know what the difference is in “ seed potatoes….and a sprouted one , out of the pantry. I must look at that video again to check the fertiliser ….he sprinkles fertiliser in 2 layers of soil in the pots
@Ken Anderson The YouTube I added…… he recommended cutting flowers off the top of spud plants ….then cutting plants to half the height 2 weeks before harvesting that way it puts “ energy “ into producing spuds instead of growth ….so it may be worth and experiment indoors but try to control green growth to prevent the energy going there instead of where you want it be producing spuds …. When I regain my energy from processing 60+ kg of our apricots ( still have another day or two for last lot of 20 kg to dry ) then I’m going to try his spud growing method