Even if you do not have the space for an outdoor garden, you can grow potatoes in a wooden barrel or a metal or plastic trash can that contains six inches of soil topped with sawdust. The larger your container is, the more potatoes you can grow inside of it. Start by drilling several drainage holes set six inches apart in the bottom of your container. Use fiberglass window screening to cover the drainage holes, then top it with six inches of soil. Add four inches of clean sawdust on top of the layer of soil.
Cut your seed potatoes into chunks that have two eyes each. (Do not use potatoes from the grocery store, as grocery store potatoes often carry plant diseases or have been treated to inhibit sprouting.) Let the seed potato chunks sit out for a few days so they can dry out a bit.
After your potatoes have sat out for a few days, press each chunk down into the sawdust so that they are just covered. Dampen the sawdust with water, but do not saturate it. Within a few days, you should see sprouts growing above the layer of sawdust. Cover these sprouts by adding another layer of sawdust. Dampen the sawdust with water again, then wait a few days for the sprouts to grow above the surface of the sawdust.
Continue with this cycle, covering the newly grown sprouts with sawdust and watering them, then waiting a few days for them to appear again, until the sawdust is just under the lip of your barrel or trash can. At this point, you should have two or three feet of potato plants growing inside the sawdust. Continue to water the potato plants periodically; they will not need you to weed them.
Around October, the plants should stop putting out new growth, and foliage will begin changing color from green to yellow. This signals the gardener that it’s time to harvest.
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