Something I’ve always wondered about indoor gardening is if we could do root vegetables like potatoes, carrots, onions, etc. indoors and it still be worth it. How much produce can one get from a few potato plants? Is the juice worth the squeeze when it comes to root veggies? We’re about to find out…

1. Find some seed potatoes. I got a bag of 8 little mixed variety russet seeders from my local garden center. If you grew them last year and have some leftover from the winter, those would also be perfect. You can also order them online from a variety of places. If you’re feeling adventurous you can try some of the more rare verities from Baker Creek, such as these. While you can technically grow a potato plant from one you bought from the grocery store that stood on the shelf too long, its debatable whether that plant will actually produce any potatoes. If it’s an heirloom/organic variety it might, or if you got it from a farmers market it might produce. Otherwise normal mass produced potatoes will probably not give you a lot of produce at the end of the season. (But you can always try)
2. For this indoor experiment I started with an average 18-gallon storage container. I added about 6″ of general soil potting mix to the bottom of the container.
3. I then planted all 8 of my seeders in the container (eyes up) and covered with about 1″ more of soil. I know that the recommended distance is about 8-10″ between plants, however this is indoors and I didn’t want to devote that much space.
4. I watered the soil, set up a lamp on a 12-hour timer and let it be.
5. The idea is once everything sprouts and starts to grow you continue covering them with soil until they reach the top of the container.

I planted the potatoes on March 16 and six days later I had my first sprout above the soil layer. It is now 12 days after starting them and all of the potatoes have at least one, if not up to 4 different sprouts. Today I poured in another layer of soil, but made sure I didn’t go over the top of my shortest sprout. So far they’re looking good!

6″ of soil in contianer

Seeder potatoes

place them in soil and cover

Add light and wait!

Sprouts after 12 days…