Even Without a Garden You Can Grow Your Own Potatoes!

Even Without a Garden You Can Grow Your Own Potatoes!

In this day of people trying to be more organic or more "green" - this is a great way of making a small step towards being more organic.

There are a couple of ways you can do this if you are short of space or have no garden. This is the way I am growing potatoes this spring.

- Take a fertilizer bag or any large strong bag. My bags are about 100 litres in size. Put some holes at the bottom of the bag for drainage.

- Half fill the bag with general purpose compost.

- Roll down the bag until the top of the bag is a centimetre or so above the compost.

- Take two seed potatoes (try the salad type which will be harvested in June/July).

- Plant these potatoes eyes up. The eyes are the little sprouts of shoots that should be coming out of the seed potato. If your seed potato has not got any shoots then set them on a tray near a window and wait until some shoots appear.

- Place them just below the surface.

- Water gently - not too much as you don't want to rot the budding shoots.

- As the plant grows you are going to roll the bag a bit up at a time and add more compost. Don't forget to water weekly and feed with some plant food.

- When the plant flowers then its time to harvest. Simple rummage through the bag for your lovely spuds!

Repeat for as many bags as you want.

Now I haven't done this before so I will keep you posted on how it goes. Apparently this method works and is a great way to have your own potatoes!

Another way of growing potatoes when you don't have the space is to use a "Potato Barrel" - as shown in image above.

Here is the method for working with the barrel.


Planting

You need 80 Litres of a good general purpose compost. Pour 6in. of compost into the bottom of the barrel and plant 5 seed potatoes (shoots or eyes uppermost), about 2in. deep. Position one potato in the centre and the other 4 in opposite corners. Do not soak the compost at this stage as this may rot the tubers. When the shoots have grown about 6in. high, add a second layer of compost around the plants, exposing just the tips. Repeat this process in layers of about 4in. until the compost and the shoots reach 1in. below the top of the barrel.

As the main stem grows towards the top of the barrel, it sends out potato-bearing side shoots all the way up, eventually producing 'new' potatoes. Potato foliage continues to grow until it is 1-2ft above the top of the barrel.

Watering and Feeding

Once the plants are well established the compost needs weekly watering and feeding with a high potash/low nitrogen soluble plant food (eg. a propriety tomato fertiliser). Do not skimp on feed and water as potatoes are greedy, especially when in a tub.

Harvesting

Eventually the plants produce tiny white or pink flowers. This is the time when potatoes should be ready to harvest. Lift the sliders in the barrel sides. The compost should be held in place by the tightly packed roots. If the potatoes are big enough, ease them out. The potatoes will keep on growing until you have harvested the whole barrel.


Let me know how it goes if you choose to do this!

Allen