Easily Grow Potatoes in a Bag or Pot With Us!
Potatoes harvests are no longer just for large gardens or farms, which is an exciting realization for many home growers.
Growing potatoes is a wonderful beginner growing crop even in smaller spaces. They are quite easy to maintain in a few bags or pots on patio’s, and in small yards. Often large scale family yards or farms choose to grow potatoes in bags or pots for ease of transportation from outdoors to greenhouses in fall for extended growing periods. Potatoes are many peoples most favorite root vegetables to grow because of their ease, health, storage ability & staple for food security.
Join us in giving it a try, we know you will be happily surprised! Truly you will love harvesting potatoes with your partner, family and children, it is a highlight activity of the growing season for many.
To Grow Potatoes In A Bag Or Pot—
What One Needs To Begin…
Let’s Get Planting
Start by using a large sturdy grow bag, or pot of choice.
Jute or felt is a great choice, making sure your minimum size is 8-10 gallons for either.
If your bag/pot does not have holes, make a few small holes in the bottom of bag/pot to prevent it from becoming waterlogged or choose a pot with holes already for good drainage.
2. Fill the bottom of the bag/pot with 4-5” of an organic mix of potting soil.
Choose an organic soil from local farm or garden store that is light in weight and drains well, we want to make sure the soil is not dense or compact so the potatoes are free to grow with space & oxygen availability.
3. Plant 2-4 ‘sprouted’ potatoes with eyes or chits, depending on size of bag.
Evenly space each sprouted ‘seed potato’ in bag/pot. Aprox 4-6” inches apart.
4. Add soil mix to fill bag/pot almost to top leaving couple inches from top.
Some growers even choose to fill the bag/pot with hay or grass clipping mulch as a growing medium to give their potato plants ample space to breathe and grow. Experiment and see what works best for you.
Adding in the addition of worm castings is a great way to enhance nutrients needed in soil for growing success a well.
5. Place your bag/pot in a bright sunny location can be balcony/deck/yard.
We want close to 7-8 hours of sun daily for best results
6. Water when top 2” of soil is dry and water till excess comes out of base.
Do not over water or seed potatoes will rot. Water every few days depending on heat & environmental conditions in your area.
7. Keep tending to your potato plants until they flower and naturally begin to die back around 90-120 days life cycle depending on potato variety.
Remove any dead foliage to reduce pest/disease issues.
8. When plant has wilted and turned brown it is time we ‘Rest’ our crop.
Stop watering the grow bags at this stage to prevent the tubers from rotting out before harvest.
Once potato foliage has completely died back, It is time to let the harvest rest aprox 2 weeks to allow potatoes tubers to toughen up their skin in the soil, this helps to reduce damage during harvesting and storage, so our harvest crop lasts longer in storage as well.
9. Harvest time! After a few weeks of no watering and rested dry soil.
To harvest, turn over bag/pot gentle and dump soil/ plant onto ground/tarp/bag/wheelbarrow and dig/sift through for a wonderful fun potato tuber harvest.
10. Curing new Potatoes. Let the tubers dry out in a cool, dark, dry location before storage.
11. Enjoy your yield & remember to save a few new potatoes to sprout for another planting round!
Once done, reuse the dirt to grow other vegetables' or flowers or mix it into other pots or garden soil. It is great practice to rotate our soil usage and always add amendments between plantings for new available minerals for next plants, additions like worm castings or compost to replenish the soil.
PFC Reminder— Often disease and pests can be less in grow bags (depending on conditions) especially on patios/decks.
Life Cycle Of Home grown Potato Plant
