Growing Potatoes in a Container

One of my experiments this year is to try growing potatoes in containers, trash cans to be exact.  We don't have a large gardening plot, but we definitely have enough room for a couple of trash cans in the back yard.  I suppose you could try this with potatoes from the grocery store and wait for them to grow eyes (those little sprouts you see coming off an older potato), but I decided to play it safe and ordered my German Butterball seed potatoes from Seed Savers Exchange.  You may also be able to find organic seed potatoes sold at a gardening center near you.

The instructions from SSE called for cutting the potatoes before planting if they were large.  The ones I received were not so I didn't cut them and left them in a window for two weeks so they would develop sprouts.  You can see the process starting below.  I'm still not sure if I should have cut them, but the instructions said a good rule was that you didn't need to if they were about the size of a golf ball.  A couple might have been a bit larger than that, so only my harvest (or lack thereof) will tell me if I made the right choice.

Potatoes growing eyes in my window.  ©P.J. Deneen

After the spuds sprouted it was time to plant.  Hubby drilled holes in in the bottom of two large, cheap trash cans from the local hardware store for drainage and I filled the bottom with about 5 inches of potting soil.  I placed the spuds on top and then covered them with another 5 inches of dirt.  As the stems grow, you keep placing dirt around them because potatoes grow outward not down.  The potatoes are supposed to grow in these layers of dirt.  I also placed a bit of manure in one layer, though I'm not an expert on the best soil for potatoes.  The instructions say light and loose, so I may lighten up on the manure.  To harvest, we'll lay down tarp and dump the cans over and hope for the best.

Potato leaves peaking through already.  ©P.J. Deneen 

As far as the frugality of growing your own potatoes, they aren't the most cost-saving crop since they're still relatively inexpensive in the stores unless you have a good deal of land.  But from a prepper's perspective, I want to learn to grow the things I eat right now while I still have the luxury of being able to experiment and make mistakes.  I'll post the results which will hopefully be a decent harvest, but if not, I'll share the lessons learned to do differently next year.

© P.J. Deneen