Potting Groundnuts (Apios Americana)

I dug up some groundnuts a couple of weeks ago from my garden because I was afraid that the voles would get them all.

Some are in the fridge, awaiting springtime, but I thought I might pot some up just for fun and grow them under lights. It is really the wrong time of year to do this, but I have a spirit of adventure. And its mid-winter and I need to grow something!
These groundnuts are “wild-type” groundnuts that I bought from Tripple Brook Farm a few years ago. I actually ordered the “cultivated” groundnut strain that was developed by Bill Blackmon at Louisiana State University, but they couldn’t ship me those for some reason and I got the wild-type instead. This strain has pretty small tubers, as you can see, about the size of a fingernail. Now that I know what groundnuts look like, I’m going to scout around the wilds to try to find some tubers with better size.
I potted the groundnuts in some old Miracle-Gro potting mix that I had on the porch. It was all frozen together in a giant lump in the bag. Normal people would probably take this as a sign that they should stop, but I went and got the cold-chisel and a hammer and broke it apart into bits that I brought inside to thaw out.
I put the groundnuts into 4” nursery pots, watered them well, and put them under lights. I’m planning to transplant them back to the garden if/when they grow.
If you want to be inspired about groundnuts, you should read this great article about ground nuts by Tamara Dean that I found today while I was surfing around.