Growing potatoes in containers

[Joeboy]

Hopefully last of the frost has passed by. This past years home grown compost for tattie bags.


Also planted out 26 seed tatties ftom last years crop in the right hand bed, currently charging with sprinkler as off on hols in a few days.

[SafetyThird]

I'll be trying container growing this year for spuds after watching this video and then seeing this thread. Looks like a great option Nowty.

We're on solid clay. Not clay soil, literally solid clay under 2" of soil, as far down as you can dig. Even spuds have a hard time growing in that, which is why we have a load of raised beds. I'm going to have a go with some containers this year and try 4 potato varieties but also try the Ruth Stout method of growing under hay. I have a few big bales in the barn from last year so going to unroll those onto a patch of the allotment so it's about 6 inches thick and plant through that to see what happens. Should be interesting.

[nowty]

First batch planed 9th April are now starting to flower. So another 2 or 3 weeks more till I start having a look at harvesting.

Second batch of 3 containers now started.

[Joeboy]

First batch planed 9th April are now starting to flower. So another 2 or 3 weeks more till I start having a look at harvesting.

Second batch of 3 containers now started.

Looking .

[nowty]

Final harvest for year in the new smaller containers.

[Fintray]

Decent looking spuds.

[Oldgreybeard]

Brilliant! I missed this thread, but I'm inspired to give this a go, as I have half a dozen left over big black plastic pots, ones that some large trees came in a few years ago (around 2ft in diameter and 2ft high at a guess). I've been loathe to throw them out, so they've just been stacked up behind the shed along with a pile of other stuff. I'd never thought of growing potatoes in pots before, so this is definitely something to try next year.

[Bugtownboy]

Just out of interest, and I think this is a great way to grow spuds, has anyone tried it with Sweet Potatoes as the YT resource reckons they also do well being container grown.

[Oldgreybeard]

I now have permission from SWMBO to do a bit of veg growing in pots. Conversation was prompted by the arrival a short time ago of a 2m high blue spruce, that instead of being delivered as a root ball was delivered in this monster pot:

Tree pot.jpg (160.66 KiB) Viewed 5134 times

It's even bigger than the pots I saved from some other trees I bought a while ago. I've earmarked a bit of spare land where I can probably put three or four large pots, just need to decide on what potato varieties to grow. Probably best to phase them, but not at all sure which do best in pots, or whether the variety makes any difference. Probably 30 years since I last grew potatoes, and back then was when we had a proper veggie plot (when the neighbour's cat wasn't using it as a latrine).

Anyone got any tips for varieties of potato that do well in pots, please? Be nice to have some earlies, followed by some bigger ones as a main crop later in the year.

[Bugtownboy]

Hi OGB, no experience of growing in pots, but you should also consider some late potatoes. We’ve just started harvesting some ‘salad’ potatoes (Alexandra) that I planted at the end of August.

We’re on a similar latitude, so you should do OK. Hopefully we’ll have enough for a feed at Christmas.

If you have a spare pot or two after you’ve harvested your early’s, could be worth a go ?