DIY: Grow Your Own Potatoes in Small Spaces
by Angie Mohr
Living in the city, it can be hard to find a place in your garden for potatoes. Potatoes grown conventionally take up a lot of growing space and are time-intensive when it’s time to dig them up. There are benefits to growing your own potatoes, though.
You have a much wider selection than that which you get in the grocery store. You will also have a ready supply of baby new potatoes, considered an expensive delicacy if you have to purchase them.
There are, however, many different methods to grow potatoes in your small garden that save time, space and work. I have tried many of these methods, but the garbage bag method is the easiest and most productive.
Get the Best Yields with the Least Work Using the Garbage Bag Method
To use the garbage bag method of growing potatoes, all you need is a sturdy garbage bag, like Glad Force Flex, some compost, shredded leaves, and seed potatoes. You can purchase certified seed potatoes from a nursery or use sprouted potatoes from your pantry.
However, be aware that unless you purchased organic potatoes, they’ve likely been sprayed with chemicals to prevent them from sprouting properly.
How to Plant the Potatoes in a Bag
Seed potatoes are your best bet, as they are certified disease-free and come in many varieties and colors, from yellow to pink to purple and blue. Cut larger potatoes into pieces that have two or three eyes each. Let potato pieces sit out to dry overnight.
When you are ready to plant, fill the garbage bag four inches deep with compost. Roll down the sides of the bag until just above the level of the soil. Poke holes with the point of a pair of scissors around the exterior of the bag just below the soil line.
Sit the bag where it will get at least six hours of full sun every day. It can be by a fence, on your balcony or in a sunny unused area of your yard. Plant three seed potato chunks into the soil and cover shallowly. Water lightly. The black garbage bag will provide extra warmth to the potatoes in the spring and fall and they will grow faster than if they were in the ground.
When to Add More Growing Medium
When shoots sprout from the potatoes and the first leaves appear, roll bag sides up to the top of shoots and fill with shredded leaves until only the top leaves are visible. Water lightly. Continue to fill the bag as growth continues until either the bag is full or flowers appear.
The shoots will continue to seek sunlight and will grow upwards as long as you keep covering most of the growth. This gives the potato plants extra length to sprout growing shoots. The bag will begin to expand outward as well as upward, giving the potatoes more space to grow.
After the potato plant blooms, it will send out subterranean shoots that will bear the potatoes. The potatoes will grow in all levels of the bag due to the continuous covering. After bloom, you may sneak your hand in and around the shredded leaves to “grabble” for some baby new potatoes, leaving the others to reach maturity.
Continue watering throughout the season. Whenever the weather threatens storms or late frosts, pull the top of the garbage bag closed to protect the plants. Make sure to open it back up as soon as possible to give the plants air circulation.
Growing Potatoes in Bags- When to Harvest
Two to three weeks after the potato plant’s foliage dies back, you are ready to harvest your main crop of potatoes. It couldn’t be simpler: simply rip open the garbage bag and sift through the shredded leaves for the potatoes. There is far less chance of damaging the potato skins than there would be if you were digging them up with a spade.
Add the leaves, compost and spent plant back into the compost pile and leave the potatoes in a cool, dry, sheltered area to cure for three days. Do not wash until you are ready to use each potato or you will shorten its storage life.
If you have never eaten a home-grown potato, you have no idea what you’re in for. The taste of a homegrown potato far surpasses a store-bought one and has more nutrients. Once you find how easy it is to grow potatoes in small spaces, you will be hooked!
Alternatively, along with the same guidelines as the bag method, you can grow 100 pounds of potatoes in about 4 square feet of space.
Bulk Method Growing Potatoes in Small Spaces
© Can Stock Photo Inc. / lcswart
https://www.associatedcontent.com/article/676503/diy_grow_your_own_potatoes_in_small.html
Okay, I admit to having been asleep when this tip was recently posted, that being said would y’all repeat how to grow potatoes and sweet potatoes in a trash bag? That is what y’all said; isn’t it??
Here’s an article I wrote about it recently. We’re just about to harvest ours:
DIY: Grow Your Own Potatoes in Small Spaces
Get the Best Yields with the Least Work Using the Garbage Bag Method
Living in the city, it can be hard to find a place in your garden for potatoes. Potatoes grown conventionally take up a lot of growing space and are time-intensive when it’s time to dig them up. There are benefits
to growing your own potatoes, though.
You have a much wider selection than that which you get in the grocery store. You will also have a ready supply of baby new potatoes, considered an expensive delicacy if you have to purchase them. There are, however, many different methods to growing potatoes in your small garden that save time, space and work.
I have tried many of these methods, but the garbage bag method is the easiest and most productive.
To use the garbage bag method of growing potatoes, all you need is a sturdy garbage bag, like Glad Force Flex, some compost, shredded leaves and seed potatoes. You can purchase certified seed potatoes from a nursery or use sprouted potatoes from your pantry. Seed potatoes are your best bet, as they are certified disease-free and come in many varieties and colors, from yellow to pink to purple and blue.
Cut larger potatoes into pieces that have two or three eyes each. Let potato pieces sit out to dry overnight.
When you are ready to plant, fill the garbage bag four inches deep with compost. Roll down sides of bag until just above the level of the soil. Poke holes with the point of a pair of scissors around the exterior of the bag just below the soil line. Sit the bag where it will get at least six hours of full sun every day.
It can be by a fence, on your balcony or in a sunny unused area of your yard. Plant three seed potato chunks into the soil and cover shallowly. Water lightly.
The black garbage bag will provide extra warmth to the potatoes in the spring and fall and they will grow faster than if they were in the ground.
When shoots sprout from the potatoes and the first leaves appear, roll bag sides up to top of shoots and fill with shredded leaves until only the top leaves are visible. Water lightly. Continue to fill bag as growth
continues until either the bag is full or flowers appear.
The shoots will continue to seek sunlight and will grow upwards as long as you keep covering most of the growth. This gives the potato plants extra length to sprout growing shoots. The bag will begin to expand outward as well as upward, giving the potatoes more space to grow.
After the potato plant blooms, it will send out subterranean shoots that will bear the potatoes. The potatoes will grow in all levels of the bag due to the continuous covering. After bloom, you may sneak your hand in and around the shredded leaves to “grabble” for some baby new potatoes, leaving the others to reach maturity.
Continue watering throughout the season. Whenever the weather threatens storms or late frosts, pull the top of the garbage bag closed to protect the plants. Make sure to open it back up as soon as possible to give the plants air circulation.
Two to three weeks after the potato plant’s foliage dies back, you are ready to harvest your main crop of potatoes. It couldn’t be simpler: simply rip open the garbage bag and sift through the shredded leaves for the potatoes. There is far less chance of damaging the potato skins than there would be if you were digging them up with a spade.
Add the leaves, compost and spent plant back into the compost pile and leave the potatoes in a cool, dry, sheltered area to cure for three days. Do not wash until you are ready to use each potato or you will shorten its storage life.
If you have never eaten a home-grown potato, you have no idea what you’re in for. The taste of a homegrown potato far surpasses a store-bought one and has more nutrients. Once you find how easy it is to grow potatoes in small spaces, you will be hooked!
>http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/676503/diy_grow_your_own_potatoes_in_small.html
© Can Stock Photo Inc. / lcswart
Awesome idea poster. Didn’t know I can also grow potatoes indoors 🙂
What a great idea. I wonder if they can be grown indoors in the winter. I live in upstate NY.
Grow light or regular sunshine…..??
Tomato balcony/deck circular bags are also available in most hardware stores. Unfold, unroll and start filling with a bit of soil. Add potatoes and follow the same routine as above poster states.
The store bought potato bags also have a front drop door where you can open the flap to gain access to potatoes on the bottom without having to dump the whole bag 🙂
I’ve used a 50 gal drum, but never in a bag, going to try it would have to be easier to harvest the potatoes
I have some Black Kow compost (cow manure) that I bought from Lowe’s. Would it be ok to use that, or is it too strong?
Would it burn the potatoes?
Gardener P Allen Smith plants his in 1/2 bushel baskets with the bottoms cut out.
I have got to try growing potatoes and sweet potatoes. Thanks for posting.
Wondering if this will work in our sun room during the winter time. I’m sure going to try a small batch to see if it works!
Great idea for my 4-H group.
this works. I did it last year with a feed bag and some seed potatoes I had. no weeding and you can reuse dirt again after you harvest your potatoes or tators in our house.
Not trying to sound ignorant but “shredded leaves”?? where does one find or how to make shredded leaves. No trees around here, is there an alternative??
Did you ever get an answer to this question? I’m glad you asked because I was about to myself. I have no idea what they mean by “shredded leaves” either …
Just to try and clarify what shredded leaves are….. If you live where there are trees that lose their leaves in the fall if you rake them up into a pile and run them over with your lawn mower a few times and viola…. shredded leaves.
If you don’t have any trees around you could go to a garden center or Walmart (good old Wally world). and get some compost and peat moss and mix them in with some regular soil and it should work. Compost is cheap…2-3 bucks a bag.(20 or 30 lbs a bag).
They also sell bags of manure to use as fertilizer. Hope this helps…… Peace
If you have leaves in the fall rake them into a pile and run them over with your lawn mower a few times and…..viola….shredded leaves. If not you could try a compost, peat moss, soil mixture. You can get the compost and moss at Walmart or a garden center.
Walmart also sells manure in bags (no smell) you can use for fertilizer. Hope this helps…. good luck…..
Peace
Edit….. just reread the post and realized my idea won’t work……I guess instead of the leaves being added (if you don’t have any)you could use the compost and moss, mostly moss I would think,(2/3 moss to 1/3 compost) as doing otherwise might get too bulky. Anyway….
good luck with your taters…….Peace
If you don’t have any trees around, I’m sure you could always find someone who would be more than happy to have you haul away some of their fallen leaves ?
Thank you for reposting the article. I think it’ll be fun to plant some taters this fall.
I am trying this for the first time this year with re-purposed feed sacks. I first saw it on Pinterest and now here. Glad to see some confirmations of success. Although I live in the country, the dirt is mostly very dense clay. Have been amending for years but have made little progress due to the size of the garden I want. (maybe over reaching but…) This year I am starting the change to raised beds.