Fill whichever container you choose one-third full with a good soil mix. You can plant potatoes as early as four to six weeks before your last frost but if you're growing in a container, I'd go with three or four weeks. Dig a shallow hole and plant a whole potato that has sprouted with the best "eye" up. If your potato has a lot of eyes, cut it into sections and plant one section per container. If you want to cut them, do it a day or two before you plant.
Cover the potato with about an inch of soil, then water. Then wait. Potatoes need between 75 to 120 days to reach harvest depending on what variety you plant so know what your variety does.
After a plant begins to grow and reaches about eight inches tall, slowly add layers of soil around the plant, "hilling" it in as it grows to encourage potatoes to grow. Make sure to always leave about two inches of the plant above the soil. You can do this until the container is almost full of soil, just make sure you leave room to add water.
To harvest, upend the container and dump contents.
We might not do it the "proper" way at Holly Tree Manor, but as long as the potatoes grow, we're okay with that.
The Lady of Holly Tree Manor
2 comments:
I never have any luck with the bag or bucket method. I think it gets too hot here in the south. But I luck the idea, so maybe I'll try again.
You may do better with sweet potatoes but I think those are more difficult to start. People say just stick a sweet potato in water and it will vine. Well, not always.
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