We live in the Netherlands where we have to deal with 4 seasons. It was 10 June 2022 and I wanted to experiment with potatoes.
In our backyard we have enough space to grow anything we want. (Ok, not everything). Since I have hay fever it was better to have artificial grass in our backyard. If I want to grow something, I would need to use pots.
I did some research online and I found out that you can grow potatoes from sprouting potatoes!
First I thought: " Hmm, doesn't make sense to grow 1 potato from 1 potato. Why on earth would I do that? But then, I read that you can just peel the potatoes. So you only need the peel of the potatoes. But of course you need to cut them thick. So I cut them very thick, since I want this experiment to succeed ;-) !
I didn't want to invest too much in a new pot. So I was looking around what I can use. I found this large Ikea bag and I thought it would be perfect for this experiment. I filled the bag with soil, for 1/3 of the bag. put the chunky thick potato peel on top and covered it with a THIN layer of soil. I put it somewhere shiny but not too bright spot. Gave it water every day. As soon you see green leaves/plants growing, you can add more soil every time.
Here you see its beginning to grow green leaves. SO cute and adorable! I know, it sounds crazy, but for a newbie like me, it looks super cute!
This picture was made 6th of July. It's growing so fast and I couldn't wait actually! I wanted to dig! Not a golddigger here, but a potato digger!
22nd of July. They say, some potatoes may give flowers. They were right. but not all had flowers. I was so excited and wanted to dig in the soil. But I read somewhere, you should wait till the plants dry out and hang. If you would dig at this stage, you might end up having only small mini potatoes. So I needed to be more patient.
3rd of September. Finally it looks sad! But I felt happy of course. Time to dig! Before I started, I was thinking: Should I wait a little bit longer? If I wait a little longer, would they be bigger then? But I waited so long, that I couldn't care less.
I was quite happy to see the amount of potatoes we got. Almost 2 kg!
I am not sure if I would do this again next year. I think it's still cheaper to buy them at the grocery shop. It is also quicker to get. But it was definitely a nice experiment.