Growing potatoes in a container

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Hi Everyone!

Just found your board here, and thought I'd ask a question. I'm not a homesteader, I'm a college student who wants to try to grow some vegetables. I don't have much space and so I have to do it in containers. Does anyone know if I plant seed potatoes in a big garbage can, how many I can put in one can. Or how to space them?

Thanks! Kate

-- Kate (bandanabarts@yahoo.com), April 11, 2002

Answers

http://www.paynesvillearea.com/News/HeadlinesArticles/archives/082599/ Vicfischerpotatoes.html

That is an article about growing potatoes in a stack of tires. Never have tried it myself.

Potatoes are cheap at the store. Grow some tomatoes. Quicker results, too.

-- Rose (open_rose@hotmail.com), April 11, 2002.


Found this internet article:

Growing barrels of potatoes: I got my hands on four plastic 50-gallon barrels. I drilled drain holes in them, set them up on blocks and planted spuds in them. Here's how: Cut up potatoes which have started to sprout, leaving an eye or more on each piece. Dry these out for two days in a cool, dry room. Then plant in a shallow layer of soil and compost in the bottom of the barrel. As the potatoes grow up, add more soil and compost. After they reach the top of the barrel, I plant a couple of bush beans in each barrel. The beans protect the potatoes against the Colorado potato beetle, and the potatoes protect the beans against the Mexican bean beetle. As soon as the potatoes flower you can find little spuds in the soil. When the whole plant dies back, kick over the barrel for a bountiful harvest. I have two barrels of red potatoes, one of white russet, and one of Yukon gold.

-- BC (desertdweller44@yahoo.com), April 11, 2002.


I've also heard you can do it with the heavy weight plastic yard bags. I've also heard you can grow tomatoes in the plastic yard bags too, but I've never tried it. Good luck.

-- cindy palmer (jandcpalmer@sierratel.com), April 11, 2002.

GROW TOMATOES, MORE BANG FOR THE BUCK.

-- randy in central missouri (rwybrant@coin.org), April 11, 2002.

Why a barrel ? Are you planting on a balcony or patio ? Remember to punch lots of drainage holes.

If you cut the bottom off the barrel to make a tube and set it on the ground, which has been dug over, the seed potatoes will have good soil to grow into at the bottom and you shouldn't need to add soil and compost on the way up. Ruth Stout's no till garden technique advises just adding more layers of straw, or clean shavings for the potatoes to grow into. This won't weigh as much to tip over at the end of the season and the potatoes will be clean at harvest

Don't add manure, the potatoes will develop diseases.

Be sure to pack down the straw under the topmost leaves to block sunlight so the potatoes do not develope green patchs. You could try collars of corrugated card board or shredded paper, layered out the width of the barrel.

The advantage of the tires technique is you add tires and straw as the plant grows. It will continually reach for the light, creating more stem from which the spuds will sprout. I've always thought that planting in the bottom of a barrel would slow this down as there's not much light getting to the bottom of the barrel.

-- Deborah Hardy (virgil@igs.net), April 12, 2002.



OK, the keep-adding-dirt part: is this like when you pile dirt along a tomato plant stem, to encourage roots to grow there? If you pile dirt around the potato plant stem, do more potatos grow along the stem?

-- Shannon at Grateful Acres Animal Sanctuary (gratacres@aol.com), April 12, 2002.

First things first Kate-Welcome. Hope you will stick around and ask any question that you may think of that needs answering for you. I read a quote a while back that basically said, a person that won't ask a question is similar to one that cannot read.

Shannon, the answer is yes, just don't get too carried away and smother the plant.

Kate, if the garbage can is one of the large ones as you indicate You might get by with planting four plants. That would crowd the plants quite a bit. However, when potatoes are crowded they will actually grow more poundage, but the potatoes will be smaller. I'd opt for three plants max if I were doing the project, triangular pattern. Good luck.

-- Notforprint (Not@thekeyboard.com), April 12, 2002.


Deborah -- is COMPOSTED (horse, chicken and goat is what we've got) manure ok for adding to the planting medium for potatoes?

Thanks! : )

-- Andrea Gauland, Big Flats NY (andreagee@aol.com), April 12, 2002.


Lee Valley (gardening supplies and tools catalogue) has a piece of black plastic with big holes in it that you connect into a big cylinder. They originally sold it for growing potatoes, but there must have been problems, as they're advertising to use it for strawberries. it says "The barrel can also be used for growing potatoes, although they require more careful attention to instructions, in order to avoid soil drying or overheating." I imagine that black plastic heats up in the sun.

If you're just a beginner, and from your post it sounds like you're trying container planting, start out with tomatoes. Just make sure the container you have them is is large enough, and tall enough that you can keep adding soil as people stated earlier. Peppers do well in containers, I had 3 in a big black plastic pot (22 inch diameter at least), put the pot in the greenhouse in September and kept them goin, ate the last pepper in January. Green beans are easy to grow, and this being spring, you may even try some peas. Heck, you can grow just about all the vegetables in pots if you have the right setup. Good luck and have fun! -Chelsea

-- Chelsea (rmbehr@istar.ca), April 12, 2002.


From Cisco Morris, a well-known gardening expert in the Seattle area:

"Drill lots of holes in the bottom of a plastic garbage can and place seed potatoes 5 inches apart, just under the surface, in 6 inches of garden soil. Fertilize every month-and-a-half with organic rhododendron food. Cover all but 1 inch of the vines with compost or wood chips every time they grow 4 inches, until the whole can is full. Wait to harvest until the vines dies down in late summer. Harvest is always a surprise. One year, I got 55 big spuds, the next year only 8, but one was the size of a Volkswagen Beetle."

He's rather wry! Anyway, I'm going to try this method. Good luck to you.

-- sheepish (the_original_sheepish@Hotmail.com), April 12, 2002.



I understand mice just LOVE this method of growing potatoes! ;o) To discourage them, I might try drilling rather small, but numerous, drainage holes.

-- Laura Jensen (lrjensen@nwlink.com), April 12, 2002.

Hi everyone!

Wow! Thanks for all your help!!! LOL! I know potatoes are cheap at the store, but I've got BLUE ones!! I really hope I can grow them so I can see if they taste the same. I don't have a lawn, I live in an apartment and only have 1/2 a balcony so that's why I'm growing them in a container. I've already started some tomatoes and green bean seeds a few days ago, but nothing's happened yet. This is the first time I've ever tried to grow anything, so I hope I did everything right. And I really hope my seed potatoes will grow! Thanks again everyone!!

Kate

-- Kate (bandanabarts@yahoo.com), April 12, 2002.


Andrea and all

My books are packed away but I think composted ( as opposed to merely aged ) manure should be ok, but don't use pure manure. I think potatoes prefer soil pH on the acid side and wood chip bedding composted with the manure should fix that.

-- Deborah Hardy (virgil@igs.net), April 13, 2002.


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