Friday, February 20, 2009

Potatoes in Bags

In October or November my dad ordered me a kit from Marshall's for growing potatoes in bags. His intention was that I would have home-grown potatoes for Christmas. But the kit only arrived a week or so ago, so today Steph and I planted them up, with some help from Eleanor and Rebecca.

You put about 8" of compost in the bottom of the bag then put three chitted spuds on top and cover with about another 4" of compost. Keep it watered, and as the shoots appear you cover them with more compost until the bag is full. I've had friends who used this method and they were amazed at the size of the crop. They told me the bag is just jam packed full of potatoes by the end.

The kit came with three bags and fifteen Swift seed potatoes. The instructions said to put three spuds in each bag, so we jabbed some holes in the bottom of a half-empty compost bag and planted that up as well. There's nothing magic about the bags that Marshall's sent me - you can grow spuds in any sack or bag or bucket of roughly the right size. The only "magic" is that receiving a kit through the post gave me a kick up the behind to actually do it. Thanks, Dad.

21 comments:

Tatyana@MySecretGarden said...

How interesting! It is not a joke, is it? I'd like to try to do that with my boys like an experiment. Where (in the house, garage, or?) do you keep those bags? It would be great if you can post some pictures! Thanks for such an interesting post!

Neil said...

Looks like you are having a bit of comment spam (all these chinese? posts in the last day :(

Matron said...

I've grown bags of early potatoes in previous years. I used the variety 'Rocket' which is supposed to be an ultra early potato. Priceless to get a crop of new potatoes just a few weeks earlier.

Melanie Rimmer said...

Not a joke at all Tatyana. The bags have to be outside. I guess you could do them in a greenhouse or something, but at any rate they need plenty of sunlight. I took some photos but they weren't very interesting - they just look like brown bags with compost in them so far.

Anonymous said...

The Landshare video played for me after I'd changed the script permissions. You didn't miss much though - H F-W says how wonderful it would be if everyone could have their own fresh fruit'n'veg. And that's it. The video doesn't add anything to the site, and isn't really necessary.

That said.. What a splendid way to get a neglected back garden tended and looked after! I'm seriously tempted, but any would-be growers in my garden would want to put fencing up to keep the rabbit away from their lovely juicy crops.

Fran

Cottage Smallholder said...

You can do this with forgotten supermarket spuds that have thrown up shots too!

Neil said...

I thought you were not allowed to use eating spuds for growing - illegal?

Yellow said...

I thought the clever bit about the bags is that they're made from a woven plastic stripping, just like the sacks some builders firms use for delivery, and they come up to my knee, so they're not that deep. The holes in them aren't cut, because the weave would rip. Instead they look likr they've been burnt through with a cigarette end, so the edges are melted. Clever. I'm tempted to do this using half growbags on their end in a corner of my patio.

Mam said...

My mate grew potatoes in those cheap orange buckets from B & Q last year quite successfully (she drilled holes in the bottom first) .... if you don't object to buying plastic too much, and you could reuse them next year I suppose, it's a cheap easy and effective way of doing it.

We're going to give it a go this year if I can dredge up the energy!

Hazel xx

Jennifer AKA keewee said...

Hmmmm! sounds quite easy to grow potatoes. I think I will give it a try this year.

THROBGOBLINS INTERNATIONAL. said...

Thanks for that, Mel. This is something I can do in my tiny terraced yard easily . Excellent idea.

lilymarlene said...

I just bought some potato bags to use with the potatoes that are surplus for the plot. Some of them I'll put in the polytunnel to see if they are much quicker than the outdoor ones. I hope to stagger my crop that way.

Linda said...

This sounds fascinating. Looking forward to hearing about and seeing the progress.

The Organic Viking said...

I've been thinking about growing spuds-in-a-bag in my patio garden, so I'll be interested to hear how yours come along!

Sunflower said...

I've just planted mine. Fingers crossed!

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