You may recall that last year's potato crop was somewhat less than stellar. Looking for inspiration, I found that Kate over at Living the Frugal Life had success with growing taters in buckets. Why not? I figured I'd give it a try. Here's how it went.
Assemble your organic seed potatoes (these were a whopping 20 cents each at the nursery).
Examine them and cut in half or fourths so that each piece has at least two eyes on it.
Once they're all cut, sit them out on the windowsill for a couple of days to dry out a bit. This is called "chitting" and helps keep them from rotting once you've planted them.
Procure yourself a few food safe 5-gallon buckets and drill holes in the bottom, thusly:
Add some fabulous compost from your bin and put the taters on top, cut sides down.
Cover them lightly with soil and make sure they get plenty of water. As the potatoes grow, I'll add soil to some buckets and straw to others to see how these methods compare.
Now we wait! Harvest time will be May or June.
So these grow over the winter or year-round? I am working on ideas for the Sequoia School Garden and the bucket idea is really cool because we could do this sooner than later, and move them around where they will get the best sun.
ReplyDeleteI grew some like that but in 1/2 trash cans. The reults were less than stellar. My friend did the same a year later with the same results. That said I hope yours produce like crazy.
ReplyDeleteI did this last spring with great success. It's so much easier to dump a bucket out and collect potatoes(and fun)then digging endlessly in the ground.
ReplyDeletei just posted about my first winter garden in containers, with the basics, lettuce, peas, carrots, etc. now i'm jazzed about potatoes!! thanks!!
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