While my purchased sweet potato vine grows fast and furious outside, my home- grown vine, sprouting from an actual potato, is on quite a growth spurt inside, too.

As you can see, the longest stem has grown from mere sprouts (third photo) to about two-feet since I started the project a couple months back. Of course, my next challenge is to figure out how to get rid of the potato and create a traditional indoor plant from the vine.

The jar of water that I suspended the cut sweet potato into is now filled with fibrous roots and I have multiple leafy stems protruding from the potato. I’ve decided to take off some of those stems as cuttings and try to root them using one of the peat pellets left over from my seed starting projects at the beginning of the season.

I’ll expand the pellets with water, then insert the cuttings and place them into the covered mini-greenhouses for a few days and cross my fingers that they’ll root. If successful, I’d like to put the plants into two small pots that sit on architectural ledges (that look like Greco-Roman columns) against the exposed brick columns inside my condo.

Meanwhile, the chartreuse sweet potato vines I got at the nursery and put into my outdoor planters are  full and lush and taking on length as well. Hopefully, the Chicago season will last a little longer into the fall (to make up for starting later) so that these vines will get the opportunity to really trail.

For now, though, I’m enjoying the way the greenish-yellow color plays against the red-oranges, yellows and blues of the other flowers in the container.

Watching the sweet potato sprout and grow vines indoors has been fascinating, too. But, there’s more than one way to approach this project. Recently, my garden blogger buddy Stephanie started her own sweet potato project in which she placed her cut potato into moistened soil instead of a jar of water to sprout her vines.

That method seems to be working, too, so if you’re interested in undertaking this experiment with your kids, it can be done indoors or out — the seasons needn’t interfere with the fun.

[Thanks for visiting City Diggity, please check out my archives for previous posts that you can take into your garden. Here are some others that feature sweet potato vine:

Kid stuff: sweet potato vine project has come a long way
A sweet, potato project: lazy, drizzly day perfect for vine time

And don’t forget to leave a comment after checking out the posts; I want to know how your garden grows.]