HelpfulGardener.com

I heard from one of my mothers' friends that to grow some potato's you first need to let a potato sprout a bunch of those root type thingys. Is that correct?
And what size pot should I use? 2 gallon? 3 or 4 gallon?

And can they grow indoors under some sun or lighting?

Are you wanting to grow the potatoes to eat, or do you want something decorative, like a sweet potato vine?

To grow potatoes in the garden, you have to buy seed potatoes, or you can take a larger potato and cut it into pieces, so that each has an "eye." The 'eyes' are where the buds are.

You then plant the pieces or seed potatoes in the soil. The Vegetable section of the forum has a lot of information about growing potatoes. They can be grown in large containers, but I think they need too much light to grow well indoors, even with supplementary lighting. JMO.

If you're interested in growing a sweet potato vine indoors as a decorative indoor foliage plant, all you have to do is place it in water. It should be only about halfway submerged in the water. Some people insert 3 toothpicks around the perimeter of the plant, to suspend it in the water. They take awhile to start roots, and should be kept in a dark place until they do so. Some grocery store sweet potatoes have been treated to prevent sprouting, so you may need to try a few different potatoes before you succeed.

A bushel basket is what I read for Irish potatoes. In a deep, well prepared raised bed, you're supposed to plant them about 12" apart . So I think it might work for one seed potato to a 5 gal bucket as long as you drill sufficient drainage holes in bottom as well as sides (good drainage is a MUST), plant the seed potato in the bottom in a well draining compost mix, and fill up with loose soil/mulch mix as the shoots grow. All speculation though, I'm NOT fond of container growing.

Oh, and what you describe -- pre-sprouting the potatoes -- is also called chitting. It works with potatoes that have sprouted in the pantry too. I planted 5 cut up pieces of those in a 2'x2' area this spring (I think early April) and got a fair harvest -- 6 or 7 pounds, I think.

You don't need to pre-sprout unless you're planting in soil that's too cold.... Now what was the sign?? Oh, I remember -- when the forsythias start blooming the soil has warmed up sufficiently to plant potatoes.

Thanks for the feedback

I'm just trying to gather all the information as I can. I love to learn! Especially something I'm very interested in!

I had and still have potatoes growing in pots. I did plant a few in the ground and although the plant got huge the harvest wasn't as good as in my pots. Also it was hard to find the potatoes in the ground. I have heavy clay soil.

I have various sizes of pots because I kept finding new volunteers in my compost pile and used whatever I had left to plant them.
My best harvest came from a small, maybe 5 gal pot with two plants in it.

Just like kissal and Applestar said, you plant the, for me, sprouted potato skins near the botton of the pot. I used mostly compost. Hey, they were happily growing there when I found them.

Then as they grow you add more compost and soil. I watered them almost every day-after- they got large.
This is my most recent harvest and what it looked like in the pot. I have a few other pics I haven't put on my site yet.


[img]https://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt87/Dianesgarden/PA011109.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt87/Dianesgarden/PA011111.jpg[/img]

[img]https://i600.photobucket.com/albums/tt87/Dianesgarden/IMG00063.jpg[/img]