Today is Day 16 of the 30 Day Challenge: How to Start a Vegetable Garden. In my last two articles, I explained how to plant potatoes in containers and how to pot up your seedlings.

Did you miss either of these articles? If so, you can find them as well as the rest of the articles in this challenge on my website. You can find the link within my Street Articles profile.

Potato Update

It's only been a week since we planted our potatoes in the heavy duty garbage bags. However, we are already seeing progress and I wanted to share it with you all.

Earlier in the week, I moved the bags of potatoes on top of a pallet to get them off the ground and provide better drainage. In moving them, the seed potatoes moved as well. Into the dirt I went and rearranged the seed potatoes. In doing so, I left about an inch of the sprout out of the dirt.

Over this past week, we have received a lot of rain. Each day it rained, the edges of the bag folded in, covering the dirt. Out I went and rolled back the edges of the bag to expose the sprouts to the sun.

I probably rolled back the bag 3 or 4 times this week as we had a lot of storms. However, each time I tested the dirt, it was damp but not drenched, and warm despite the cooler temperatures. The seed potatoes seemed to be doing well.

Yesterday, after another overnight rainfall, I rolled back my bags and was greeted with a green surprise! Not only were there half inch leaves on my sprouts, but I could see little white roots growing from the bottom of my potatoes.

While it is a pain to go outside every day and rollback the bags in this early stage of planting, I am happy to learn that the lack of sunlight has not inhibited the growth of my potatoes and they are taking to the soil and their new environment nicely.

I will update this article with a picture of the potato plants once they grow a little more and the leaves are more prominent in the pictures.

30 Day Challenge

For those of completing this challenge with me, how are you doing? Have any of you planted potatoes this year in containers or the ground? I love hearing about everyone's gardens!

Do you have any questions or comments about your garden? Leave them here or on my blog. I want to hear from you!