How to Grow Potatoes in your Home Vegetable Garden

I love potatoes and who can argue. You can take a potato and make an unlimited number of great food recipes that can be found anywhere over the Internet. I recently posted this question on my Vegetable Gardening Facebook page, “what do you make with potatoes?” I received hundreds of different recipes and ideas, many of which I never heard of leading me to believe that potatoes are one of these most versatile vegetables that you can grow. To grow your own potatoes, you will need a plastic container, toothpicks, water and of course a potato, well a half of a potato actually. Here is how you can start growing potatoes in your home vegetable garden.

Take the potato of choice, I love sweet potatoes, that you wish to grow in your vegetable garden and cut it in half. You can either use both halves and have two of the same potatoes growing at the same time (speeds production up a bit) or just eat one of the halves and use the other to get your potatoes going.

Now that you have one half of the potato cut and ready to go, plunge toothpicks in the potato so that they, the toothpicks, are sticking out of the sides. The toothpicks are used to suspend the potato about an inch above the bottom of the plastic container so that the bottom of the potato can take in plenty of water. You can see pictures of what this looks like on my website.

Place your toothpick laden potato into the plastic container. If the bottom of the potato touches the bottom of the plastic container you will either need to move the toothpicks or get yourself a deeper plastic container. It is very important that the bottom of the potato has at least an inch of “breathing” room.

Fill the plastic container (that has the potato suspended in it of course) with water. Always, always, always make sure that there is ample water in the plastic container at all times. Potatoes use a lot of water so don’t be surprised if you are filling your container on a daily basis.

Place your potato and water filled plastic container on a window sill that receives ample sunlight throughout the day, preferably a window sill that gets sunlight first thing in the morning.

The potato will start sprouting from the top and eventually start growing roots at the bottom. Once the potato has grown enough roots to nearly fill the plastic container, it is ready to move to the soil. You will bury the entire potato so that just the sprouts at the top are exposed.

That is it. Potatoes spread like wildfire. Watch in amazement as what was once just a half of potato can literally grow into an unlimited amount depending upon the space that you have.

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