Houseplants

I have three houseplants on the table in front of the breakfast area window - complete with a grow light to support their growth through the winter.

My experimental plant is ginger. A root that I had purchased to add to stir fries sprouted - and I cut off the two areas that sprouted and put the pieces in soil. They have done very well. The original sprouts now are stems and leaves...and there are additional sprouts at the base.

The aloe that had gotten way to large is survived by some smaller versions of itself as my second houseplant. How long will it be before these small ones graduate to the parent’s pot?

So far the sweet potato vines that I rooted in water and then planted in soil are not doing well at all. It is very frustrating. My goal had been to have three pots of the vines so that I could harvest the occasional leave to add to winter salads. Right now they are acting like they preferred to stay in water rather than grow in soil.

Still these few plants are my brace against the coming drabness outdoors. Right now there is still a lot of leaf color but it won’t be long before the color variety in the outdoor scene will be dominated by browns and piney greens….until it snows and we’ll enjoy the clean white for a few days.

Russet Potato House Plant - February 2014

At the end of January I posted about the russet potato that has sprouted…and been planted in a pot to grow as houseplant. The sprouts have grown very rapidly in the past 10 days. One of the sprouts has averaged in inch of growth per day and both are thriving better than the sweet potato that is growing in the same pot (the yellow leaves in the picture are the sweet potato; perhaps the temperature even in the house is too chilly for the sweet potato to thrive).

I have added another grow light and hope that both plants will manage to get through the winter so I can put them into the garden after the last danger of frost this spring.

I like watching the early rapid growth of plants. The russet potato leaves unfurl from a stalk that has bumpy ridges. And on the stems there are fine hairs. Every day there seems to be something new to notice about its growth.

Russet Potato House Plant - January 2014

I started a sweet potato vine back in October when I found a sweet potato had sprouted before I could eat it; I posted about the lush houseplant it has become earlier this month. Just after that post I discovered a russet potato that had sprouted. I cut of the end that had sprouted and put it in the same large pot as the sweet potato and it is growing very rapidly. The two short stalks to the left in the picture above are the russet potato. The sweet potato vine winds around the pot and some of its leaves are visible to right.

Tomorrow I’m going to rig a grow light so that both plants with thrive until I can put them outdoors for the summer. The pot is large but maybe not large enough for both of them!