Growing potatoes indoors in the winter?
Growing Potatoes indoors in the winter?
Why not?!
These are the last of the garden potatoes of 2022. Our biggest crop so far, though we didn’t actually weigh the yield.
I had these potatoes that started to sprout in December or January. So, on a lark, I thought let’s plant them. See what happens.
Turns out, it’s a thing! Growing Potatoes indoors in the winter?
You can totally grow potatoes indoors in Canada in the winter.
Why am I only hearing about this now?!
The plants shown above? Planted in early February. Once I pulled the planters in from the back yard and let them thaw out for literally a week! December and January hit 30 below. The soil was frozen solid. They were heavy too, I might add.
I planted 5 “chits” in each planter about 3 weeks apart. The first 5 were from our garden that sprouted. Then, I planted 5 more that were store bought and started sprouting.
I have no extra lighting to give them. I have moved them around to find the sunniest spot that I can protect them from the dog. Or, rather, protect the dog from the potatoes. Which is in the office. It has a western facing window. That’s it. This brings up an important point.
POTATOES ARE POISONOUS TO DOGS! IF YOUR GOING TO TRY THIS, MAKE SURE YOU CAN KEEP YOUR POOCH FROM EATING THE PLANTS!!
You can see in the pictures, the black mesh. That worked until the plants start growing through it. You could adjust the mesh if you need too. It is working so far.
So, Growing potatoes indoors in the winter from here?….
Bloom or not, they should be ready for harvest around the first of May. I didn’t fill the pots full when I planted them originally. Now it’s the beginning of March, and I filled the top 4-6 inches of the planter with soil. Just soil that I had around mixed with some less than ideal worm compost. (It dried weird and formed little rocks of compost that I can’t crush, so it’s hard to do anything with.)
Follow along to see the yield in May. Just in time to plant the garden potatoes again!
