Sprouting Sweet Potatoes

Last summer I planted some sweet potatoes in my garden.  I wasn't sure what was going to happen or if they would grow, but after the first frost I dug up a couple extremely large ones, about a dozen mid sized and around 2 dozen small ones that resembled roots.  

We have been eating them here and there all winter and they are best sweet potatoes we have ever had.  So next year of course I am going to grow MORE!  I was reading online that the best way to start new ones is to take the smaller existing ones that you dug up, put them in water and wait for them to grow.  Let them grow for about 6 weeks until you get some good plants and then transplant them into some small pots for further development until they are ready to be planted.  So here we go, I put these in the water on January 19, 2014.

The Indoor Potato Project

I found some red potatoes with eyes starting to form on them at a friends house and decided to try and grow them.  The problem was it was early december.  So I did some reading on potatoes and they prefer cooler temps and do well in the early spring.  I figured my garage never drops below 40 degrees and I have some nice windows my Uncle installed for me.  So I took a spare storage container, drilled some holes in the bottom, put 4 inches of soil in the bottom.  Then I planted the potatoes and covered them with another 3 inches of soil.

When they started to grow and got about 4 inches tall I covered them up almost all the way with soil and continued that process until the plants hit the top of the container.  Now they are well above the top and growing like, well potatoes.  Potatoes have a 90 day germination period and we are at about 30 days.  I can wait for march so we can eat some garage taters!

***Update.

Potatoes died. :(  They need sunlight.  They got really tall, but no spuds.  The outdoor version worked really well. Oh well.