Raising Potatoes in containers

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GreenAcres

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Apr 6, 2020
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Tennessee
I have been pondering this question for awhile, and I had more or less forgotten about it until I ran across this on Facebook. I have seen folks uses blue plastic barrels, some sort cloth bag, old tires and all sorts of other stuff. What do y’all think
 

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I don't think its just something you guys are doing wrong but th potatoes may be the problem. Seems some seeds and crops ain't what they use to be. Of ourse I may be wrong.
Green A, maybe do a little of both i hear it is not good to add too much nitrogen or you'll just get green leaves and no roots ,but I also think BacPacker is a good gardener so maybe it theplant not the grower.
 
Yea my background is in from a large scale farm, we have over 600 acres, so traditional farming I understand and have all the equipment to do it.

however, on this little 4 acre spread that is mine, I’m wanting to conserve space and do mainly raised beds. I’m going to fence in a paddock for a pig or two, another for a beef cow.

potatoes grown the standard way take up a ton of space. So I’m certainly interested in it.
 
Yea my background is in from a large scale farm, we have over 600 acres, so traditional farming I understand and have all the equipment to do it.

however, on this little 4 acre spread that is mine, I’m wanting to conserve space and do mainly raised beds. I’m going to fence in a paddock for a pig or two, another for a beef cow.

potatoes grown the standard way take up a ton of space. So I’m certainly interested in it.


Well then hope I didn't skin my ignorance taching the teacher here,lol.
I'm so glad your here with us we have a good group and looks like you'll fit right in.
 
Well then hope I didn't skin my ignorance taching the teacher here,lol.
I'm so glad your here with us we have a good group and looks like you'll fit right in.

oh lord, don’t think I was being smart or anything. I really have no idea what I’m doing most of the time.
As far my 4 acres, I am excited to do a bit farming and homesteading that doesn’t involve the family farm. Don’t get me wrong, I loved growing up there, and It’s a ton of work, but I love it.

But this is my 4 acres, not a part of the larger farm. Just mine. I’m excited to do my own thing. I am even looking into aquaponics.
 
Green Acres,
I did a very similar tower for 2 years. Last 2 due to some family issues we were unable to get a garden in in time. I'm going to try it again this year but I'm changing it as my results were mediocre at best. I used 2x4 for the corners and 5/4 deck boards for the side and it was about 2'x2' square and about 3' tall and that part all worked great. The plants grew great and every week I kept burying about 2/3 of the plant till it was near the top. Come harvest I got like maybe 1.5lbs of taters. I videoed it but think I never did finish the edit and post to Youtube as I was so disappointed.

Now here is what I've learned on this as I'm hell bent to get better results. The box needs to be bigger. It means more dirt but part of the problem is that the tower dries out so quickly even with daily watering and the soil also gets very hot. I'm gonna go to a 3'x3' this year and I need to place it where maybe it gets more afternoon shade. Your soil mix needs to be very loose and say about 1/3 peat moss.

Another huge thing is the type of potato. This seems to be the elusive part and is all conjecture to this point for me but potatoes are apparently like tomatoes in that there are determinant and indeterminate varieties. We need the indeterminates and these apparently tend to be reds and late season varieties. I know Yukons didn't do it. The few potatoes I had were at the bottom of the box at the seed level and not up higher in the tower. I'm gonna try to find norlands, chieftains

From what I experienced and the research I've done I plan to put in about 4-5" soil and mix in a little bone meal, plant the potatoes and cover with only 5-6" more and top dress that with a decent coating of more bone meal and water in everything very well. Once they pop thru let them get up about 8-10" and bury 2/3 and keep repeating till I get to about 2 inch from the top. If you fill to the very top it makes trying to water a pain as it wants to run off. I'm hoping to try 3 different boxes. 2 with different varieties of reds and in one I might try yukons again but what I'm thinking is that every time I get ready to "hill" up I might put a few more seeds in between the plant stalks already growing. That way if they are only setting tubers at the level of the seed maybe putting seeds on more layers will let them fill in the "floors" of the tower. Again, sort of a science experiment but I do plan to use the bone meal in all them as it's to really help root crops.

I might try a 4th experiment of just going out to my in-laws who live out on the mountain and raking up a load of leaves from the woods, with some of the mychro fungi in the leaf litter and use that as the "soil" to grow in. Maybe I'll mix in some old or rotted straw if I can find it. I don't know the method of gardening but I saw where a couple just rolled out old straw on the ground and planted taters in it and they did very well other than trying to be sure to keep the tubers covered from turning green. They had great results and the potatoes were super clean. Sorry for the long reply but hopefully you will find something useful here.

Check this guys vids out as he really goes into the biology of the potatoes he grows in buckets. Here is a good one he goes into detail on how potatoes grow.
 
Green Acres,
I did a very similar tower for 2 years. Last 2 due to some family issues we were unable to get a garden in in time. I'm going to try it again this year but I'm changing it as my results were mediocre at best. I used 2x4 for the corners and 5/4 deck boards for the side and it was about 2'x2' square and about 3' tall and that part all worked great. The plants grew great and every week I kept burying about 2/3 of the plant till it was near the top. Come harvest I got like maybe 1.5lbs of taters. I videoed it but think I never did finish the edit and post to Youtube as I was so disappointed.

Now here is what I've learned on this as I'm hell bent to get better results. The box needs to be bigger. It means more dirt but part of the problem is that the tower dries out so quickly even with daily watering and the soil also gets very hot. I'm gonna go to a 3'x3' this year and I need to place it where maybe it gets more afternoon shade. Your soil mix needs to be very loose and say about 1/3 peat moss.

Another huge thing is the type of potato. This seems to be the elusive part and is all conjecture to this point for me but potatoes are apparently like tomatoes in that there are determinant and indeterminate varieties. We need the indeterminates and these apparently tend to be reds and late season varieties. I know Yukons didn't do it. The few potatoes I had were at the bottom of the box at the seed level and not up higher in the tower. I'm gonna try to find norlands, chieftains

From what I experienced and the research I've done I plan to put in about 4-5" soil and mix in a little bone meal, plant the potatoes and cover with only 5-6" more and top dress that with a decent coating of more bone meal and water in everything very well. Once they pop thru let them get up about 8-10" and bury 2/3 and keep repeating till I get to about 2 inch from the top. If you fill to the very top it makes trying to water a pain as it wants to run off. I'm hoping to try 3 different boxes. 2 with different varieties of reds and in one I might try yukons again but what I'm thinking is that every time I get ready to "hill" up I might put a few more seeds in between the plant stalks already growing. That way if they are only setting tubers at the level of the seed maybe putting seeds on more layers will let them fill in the "floors" of the tower. Again, sort of a science experiment but I do plan to use the bone meal in all them as it's to really help root crops.

I might try a 4th experiment of just going out to my in-laws who live out on the mountain and raking up a load of leaves from the woods, with some of the mychro fungi in the leaf litter and use that as the "soil" to grow in. Maybe I'll mix in some old or rotted straw if I can find it. I don't know the method of gardening but I saw where a couple just rolled out old straw on the ground and planted taters in it and they did very well other than trying to be sure to keep the tubers covered from turning green. They had great results and the potatoes were super clean. Sorry for the long reply but hopefully you will find something useful here.

Check this guys vids out as he really goes into the biology of the potatoes he grows in buckets. Here is a good one he goes into detail on how potatoes grow.


Very interesting. In hadn’t given much thought to the variety of potatoes. That’s a lot of good info.
 
Green Acres,
I did a very similar tower for 2 years. Last 2 due to some family issues we were unable to get a garden in in time. I'm going to try it again this year but I'm changing it as my results were mediocre at best. I used 2x4 for the corners and 5/4 deck boards for the side and it was about 2'x2' square and about 3' tall and that part all worked great. The plants grew great and every week I kept burying about 2/3 of the plant till it was near the top. Come harvest I got like maybe 1.5lbs of taters. I videoed it but think I never did finish the edit and post to Youtube as I was so disappointed.

Now here is what I've learned on this as I'm hell bent to get better results. The box needs to be bigger. It means more dirt but part of the problem is that the tower dries out so quickly even with daily watering and the soil also gets very hot. I'm gonna go to a 3'x3' this year and I need to place it where maybe it gets more afternoon shade. Your soil mix needs to be very loose and say about 1/3 peat moss.

Another huge thing is the type of potato. This seems to be the elusive part and is all conjecture to this point for me but potatoes are apparently like tomatoes in that there are determinant and indeterminate varieties. We need the indeterminates and these apparently tend to be reds and late season varieties. I know Yukons didn't do it. The few potatoes I had were at the bottom of the box at the seed level and not up higher in the tower. I'm gonna try to find norlands, chieftains

From what I experienced and the research I've done I plan to put in about 4-5" soil and mix in a little bone meal, plant the potatoes and cover with only 5-6" more and top dress that with a decent coating of more bone meal and water in everything very well. Once they pop thru let them get up about 8-10" and bury 2/3 and keep repeating till I get to about 2 inch from the top. If you fill to the very top it makes trying to water a pain as it wants to run off. I'm hoping to try 3 different boxes. 2 with different varieties of reds and in one I might try yukons again but what I'm thinking is that every time I get ready to "hill" up I might put a few more seeds in between the plant stalks already growing. That way if they are only setting tubers at the level of the seed maybe putting seeds on more layers will let them fill in the "floors" of the tower. Again, sort of a science experiment but I do plan to use the bone meal in all them as it's to really help root crops.

I might try a 4th experiment of just going out to my in-laws who live out on the mountain and raking up a load of leaves from the woods, with some of the mychro fungi in the leaf litter and use that as the "soil" to grow in. Maybe I'll mix in some old or rotted straw if I can find it. I don't know the method of gardening but I saw where a couple just rolled out old straw on the ground and planted taters in it and they did very well other than trying to be sure to keep the tubers covered from turning green. They had great results and the potatoes were super clean. Sorry for the long reply but hopefully you will find something useful here.

Check this guys vids out as he really goes into the biology of the potatoes he grows in buckets. Here is a good one he goes into detail on how potatoes grow.

I didn't think about bone meal. I have some and could add it to my potato buckets.

I wonder how much fertilizer people are adding if any? I plan on adding some fertilizer to my potatoes as they grow.

I watched a video about growing potatoes in buckets of sawdust and sand, with a particular kind of fertilizer added once a week, Mittleider fertilizer.



I have lots of potatoes to plant, planted two buckets today, with many more to go. I needed more potting soil so I went and got more today.
 
Mittleider is what I did Weedy. It worked really well and the first 2 years it was weed free. Where I messed up is that when I built my raised beds, I didn't line them. I thought ehhh, won't be a problem... wrong, my crabgrass went right under the doards as did some nearby tree roots that apparently loved the fertility. Now this year as I cleaned them out I did notice that the clay ground I'd built them on, the ground under the soil mix was loose and fertile, like the clay had been converted and it was full of worms too.

one of my first attempts at youtube...
Looks like I never put together the video of the potato grow tower vid
 
Mittleider is what I did Weedy. It worked really well and the first 2 years it was weed free. Where I messed up is that when I built my raised beds, I didn't line them. I thought ehhh, won't be a problem... wrong, my crabgrass went right under the doards as did some nearby tree roots that apparently loved the fertility. Now this year as I cleaned them out I did notice that the clay ground I'd built them on, the ground under the soil mix was loose and fertile, like the clay had been converted and it was full of worms too.

one of my first attempts at youtube...
Looks like I never put together the video of the potato grow tower vid

You never know how things will go. Some times things go well, other times, not so well. Do you still use Mittleider fertilizer?
 
I do. In fact I need to mix up more for this year. I had gotten a new bag of fertilizer 2 years ago and then like I said ended up not getting time to garden. So I'll use that along with my last packet of Mittleider mix to make the weekly feed mix. But I need to get a bag of pelletized lime to make up more preplant mix. Depending on your soil pH a person might need to change the pre-plant recipe and instead of lime they have to use something else. I don't recall but it's pretty basic stuff and is in the book.

I really like the Mittleider system. Dr Mittleider developed from years of his own gardening and then developed something that would work in poor countries he would mission in to help improve their lives with minimum inputs. It can be done in raised beds or direct in ground but you basically build up your rows. It takes a little extra work to set up but to be honest it was so simple and I hardly had any weeds. He has an entire system designed that you can pick and choose from. So there are T-posts, automated watering, row covers and so on.

Another big piece of it is going vertical so you use T posts to allow to string wires and then use strings to train your plants up and use to support the plants. and then you can prune out excess plant growth. I mean I had tomato plants that were probably 8-9' tall and my cucumbers were that and more. So much of the fruit ripens as it isn't on the ground to rot and get pests, instead its up to get air and sun. Food tasted amazing and I was very impressed with the results. My biggest thing is I need to get more organized with it. There are things that take a little time to build but once you do it, that's it and going forward it saves you so much time.

There is a guy on Youtube who I watched all of his vids, LDS Prepper. He walks you thru the entire process of building up the system and you see the results that he gets. He is a huge advocate of the program and got to the point he worked with the guy that had sort of inherited the business from Dr M, Jim Keenard I think his name was. LDS then moved from Houston to Idaho and built a geothermal green house to grow almost year round despite the shortened grow seasons and cold winters. He sort of disappeared for several years and just in the last month or so is back posting. Apparently he and his wiffe were asked to fulfill a mission for their church. But now he has another geothermal greenhouse and is growing citrus trees in it and everything is still with the Mittleider system.

Sorry to get long but it's a subject that excites me.:clapping:
 
There is a guy on Youtube who I watched all of his vids, LDS Prepper. He walks you thru the entire process of building up the system and you see the results that he gets. He is a huge advocate of the program and got to the point he worked with the guy that had sort of inherited the business from Dr M, Jim Keenard I think his name was. LDS then moved from Houston to Idaho and built a geothermal green house to grow almost year round despite the shortened grow seasons and cold winters. He sort of disappeared for several years and just in the last month or so is back posting. Apparently he and his wiffe were asked to fulfill a mission for their church. But now he has another geothermal greenhouse and is growing citrus trees in it and everything is still with the Mittleider system.
I have been a follower of this guy for years. He lived in Houston and showed lots of videos of packaging food for food storage. He showed how to use the can canners. In fact, he has access to some for sale now, for around $1800 - $1900.

Around 5 years ago he moved to Idaho. He is an engineering type so everything is clean, crisp, well organized and researched in his life. It has been interesting to see him develop his homestead with 1000 pounds of propane in tanks buried underground, his greenhouses, his canning of all the produce he grows. We could all use someone like him in our lives. He sure gets stuff done. I am limited by my strength, or lack of it, my focus (ADD symptoms!), and endurance, or lack of it. I had a busy day yesterday, outside, and working on gardening and I am feeling it today.
 
In our winter I grow (Irish) potatoes and I have to fertilize heavily because they're heavy feeders. Once they crop out I use the ground for my summer sweet potatoes and I don't fertilize at all. The sweet potatoes are a completely different species than Irish potatoes and they'll mop up any nutrients that the Irish potatoes leave behind. Sweet potatoes don't need a lot of nutrients and too much nitrogen will result in a lot of vine and precious few sweet potatoes.
The business of fertilizing potatoes in a bucket might be key to a good harvest. Thank you, Tank Girl, for this. I just bought one each of 3 different varieties of sweet potatoes last week. I have them in jars to sprout. I have never grown sweet potatoes before so I have no idea how this is going to work. I have seen people grow them in classrooms, but it is not something I had ever seen while growing up, so I am completely unfamiliar with growing them. If I don't get slips in time to grow this summer, I may keep them as a house plant over the winter and see if I have any to plant next year. It is a science experiment!
 
The business of fertilizing potatoes in a bucket might be key to a good harvest. Thank you, Tank Girl, for this. I just bought one each of 3 different varieties of sweet potatoes last week. I have them in jars to sprout. I have never grown sweet potatoes before so I have no idea how this is going to work. I have seen people grow them in classrooms, but it is not something I had ever seen while growing up, so I am completely unfamiliar with growing them. If I don't get slips in time to grow this summer, I may keep them as a house plant over the winter and see if I have any to plant next year. It is a science experiment!

Weedy my friend had swet potato vines growing all over her kitchen.She said they are very pretty vines.We are growing some in our kitchen too, about ready to put out into gaden.The two 'slow bloomers' finally came up in last 5 days.Took this pic this morning.

1588179259666.png
 
Well and don't forget the sweet potato greens are very edible. wilt them like lettuce or for a stir fry, add to a salad. Some get more food from the greens than the tubers. And as you said, once they get going they are prolific and a food source all summer long.
 

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