How to Grow Potatoes in Containers

The beauty of growing your own potatoes is that you do not have to have a large garden to do so. Potatoes are very adaptable and more and more home gardeners are growing potatoes in specialist potato planters, barrels, potato bags and buckets in their yards, patios and small gardens.

One of the most popular ways to grow potatoes these days is in a potato planter. These large planters are the perfect size, colour and shape to grow reasonable sized crops of potatoes in your own back garden.

When it comes to growing potatoes in a container the basic principles are the same no matter which container you choose to use. The container should have adequate drainage complete with a selection of broken pots and stones at the bottom to prevent the drainage holes from becoming blocked by the compost. next you will need to place around 15cm of high quality potting compost above the broken pots in which you need to plant your seed potatoes, preferably with the sprouts pointing towards the top of the container.

Once planted you need to cover your potatoes with some more composts ensuring that they are well buried before watering well. Eventually you should start to see a number of shoots breaking up through the compost at which stage you should recover them with more compost. Commonly known as 'earthing up' this stage may be repeated on a number of occations over the next couple of months. It is important that the shoots are not left exposed to the light as this can cause them to turn green.

It may also be necessary for you to feed potato crops with a potato food at regular intervals whilst they are growing. Your garden centre should be able to advise on which feed to use and how often to feed it. Other things to look out for during the time your crop is growing are signs of the numerous pests and diseases that plague potato harvest every year. Further information and the signs to look out for in relation to these diseases can be found in the article Potato Pests and Diseases.

The time to dig your crop up from the soil will usually be around the time that the plants begin to flower, at this stage you should scrape away some of the compost from around your potatoes to check their development. If they look a good size then the time has come to harvest them, if you leave your yield in the groud for too long they are likely to come under attack from garden pests such as slugs so it is essential to keep an eye on their growth.

The final stage will require you to leave or set out your yield where they can be left to dry out before being stored. Typically, only first early varieties are grown in pots as they require less space than second or maincrop potatoes.

Other Information

For help choosing varieties of potatoes to grow, and for chitting advice see our article Growing Potatoes or for information on growing potatoes in the garden see our article How to Grow Potatoes in the Garden.