[engine2quarters]

I've got quite a few potatos with decent eyes appearing, living in my potato bin(s). Wondering if anybody has ever planted potatos indoors during the winter? And, what the success rate of them was. :dunno:

I've got a few tomatos already growing in the living room windows, a strawberry plant or two, and a survivor potato plant (pre-hard frost) that are doing pretty good so far. Well, they're still green and growing.

Don't want to put the 'garden' away just yet.

 

[DJ54]

I can't comment on growing them inside, but a buddy of mine planted some last fall, and mulched them with about 2' of leaves. He kept checking them over the winter, and had considered the experiment a complete loss, as we had a pretty frigid winter, until early this Spring. Hardly any top had grown, but tubers were flourishing underneath. By mid April, he was selling near full sized potatoes at market,and many, many, what they refer to as "new potatoes" size.

 

[engine2quarters]

So far, we're 12 for 12. I have 12 potato plants all 4 inches+ high and ready to transplant into bigger containers.
Now starts the fun. I have an additional 16 tomato plants that need their own space, too. Gonna be an interesting next couple days, finding room, each with a 'watering saucer' underneath.
Fresh tomatos and potatos at Christmas. Yummy!

 

[JudyM]

That is pretty cool!

What size of containers will you move the potatos up to and what kind of growing medium will you have them in?

And light? Just what you can get from the windows or are they under lights?

Pics??

 

[engine2quarters]

No pics, sorry. Camera card full and the 'new' pc won't accept my camera.
Right now, they're in 6 inch flower pots, about to be moved to 5 gallon black plastic pots, that you get new bushes/trees in. Got a bunch of them when I dropped of some leaves at the local brush recycle pile. Someone dropped the pots off by mistake. Pots about 18" round, 12" high, with drainage holes. Planting low,then filling in as they grow. Picked up some porcelain 'eating' plates at the local 'put-n-take' building at the trash station, to put inder the plastic pots so water won't end up on the wooden floors.
Growing medium will be leaf mulch soil from the garden (if it warms up at all (still frozen)), already treated with lime and potassium. Might try some potting soil (left over from 2014) mixed with some leaf mulch. My 2 year old leaf mulch is like fine dry loam.
Little buggers are approaching 10" high, so I gotta act fast. Nice big, healthy green plants. Don't know whats happening under the soil.
The orphaned 2-leaf plant I found hiding in the garden just before the last hard frost is coming along, still don't know what I got, but it's green and healthy, and following the sun.
My unheated porch faces south, the south wall is all glass, so it's nice and brite & warm during the day, but have to bring the plants in at night. Kitchen morfs into a green house at night. From now on, they'll be in the living room, 6 windows facing south, sharing space with a dozen tomato plants, plus normal living room stuff. No room for the Christmas tree again this year. No artificial light, just the windows.
Don't know what they'll do. Maybe just make a big green/living plant. Who knows, I could have pumpkins hanging from the chandelier in a couple months. Or big plants for the 2016 garden.
So far, hasn't cost me a dime. And it's all re-useable.
The only way to 'learn' is to 'experiment'.

 

[jachd17]

I have been taking in potted pepper plants during the winter. Currently I have several large Carolina Reaper plants in a back room. This will be my first attempt at wintering over for those. I have done this in the past with ghost peppers that I kept for 3 years. The plants go into a semi dormant stage. When spring rolls around I put them into a larger pot and put them outside. They start adding new leaves and flowers fairly quickly and each year they produce more peppers than the previous year. The problem with indoor growing in winter is lack of light. For optimum growth 12+ hours of daylight are needed. An artificial light source could be used for the tomato plants if you want them to produce.

 

[JudyM]

looking forward to updates on this no matter what the result!

 

[engine2quarters]

I didn't think I had much result from the regular garden potato planting, but 5 buckets later, I can just squeeze between the kitchen table, the buckets of potatos and the cellar doorway. They multiply just like tractors do, when out of sight.