Growing Potatoes in Bags or Containers

If you don't have big space for planting potatoes, or you don't have a garden. You can grow potatoes using bags or containers ad enjoy harvesting a few of your home grown potatoes in the summer . Grow bags and containers for potatoes are an excellent solution for patio or small space gardeners.

The bag lets the plant spread out its roots and as your plants grow, you can still add layers of soil.

The reason for layering is the same as hilling. Home gardeners traditionally hill potatoes to encourage them to produce lots of roots and hence lots of tubers. This method takes some space. That's why grow bags and containers for potatoes are an excellent solution for patio or small space gardener.

There's nothing like the taste of fresh, home-grown organic potatoes and they're so easy to grow in bags or containers.  So, why not try and grow these resourceful vegetables? All you need is a sunny space to grow, a steady supply of water, some plastic bags or containers and seed potatoes!

Keep reading as i will guide you step by step how to successfully start growing your own organic potatoes in gags or containers...Growing Potatoes in Bags Or Containers

I like to plant potatoes in tires. Put one down and plant your potatoes. As they grow Put on another tire and fill with dirt, hay, just about anything as long as it's dry. When they grow above that Put on another tire. As high as you like. Then let them grow. The tires absorb heat so you can start them early. When your ready to harvest just knock the tires over and they will be full of potatoes all the way up

Someone on the forum recommended growing potatoes in a cardboard box.

This person said something like "fill the box with dirt, plant potatoes, when you are ready to harvest just pick up the box and the potatoes will fall out  of the bottom of the box."

I thought this was a great idea.

Ol' Charles here has good advice and he's just a joy to listen to:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXO_j0vriwk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klrUA_nbFI4


If you're growing in containers watch for too much heat.
Potatoes pretty much quit growing spuds much above 80 degrees.
This is our major limitation here in FL.

the first video above goes into this. Know which sort of potatoes you have.

This can be further simplified to determinate or indeterminate.
Hit your favorite search engine and there are lists of who's who on that.

Determinate are all the faster growing early ones, don't need much if any hilling and are planted more shallow.
They grow the spuds in a layer just above the seed potato

Indeterminate are the ones that if you keep hilling them they make more spuds. Obviously, those would be planted more deeply or in a way they ould be hilled up.
They continue to put out spuds for as high as the stem gets hilled.

I have recently experimented with growing potatoes in a grow bag and was thrilled with the results. The bag gives the potato plant more room to spread its roots and you can keep adding layers of soil as the plant grows which is similar to the hilling process. Grow bag and containers are great for small spaces and patios, as they don't take up too much space. I was really happy with the flavor of the potatoes I grew and I'm eager to see what next harvest will bring!

Chokri Hizem wrote:If you don't have big space for planting potatoes, or you don't have a garden. You can grow potatoes using bags or containers ad enjoy harvesting a few of your home grown potatoes in the summer . Grow bags and containers for potatoes are an excellent solution for patio or small space gardeners.

The bag lets the plant spread out its roots and as your plants grow, you can still add layers of soil.

The reason for layering is the same as hilling. Home gardeners traditionally hill potatoes to encourage them to produce lots of roots and hence lots of tubers. This method takes some space. That's why grow bags and containers for potatoes are an excellent solution for patio or small space gardener.

There's nothing like the taste of fresh, home-grown organic potatoes and they're so easy to grow in bags or containers.  So, why not try and grow these resourceful vegetables? All you need is a sunny space to grow, a steady supply of water, some plastic bags or containers and seed potatoes!

Keep reading as i will guide you step by step how to successfully start growing your own organic potatoes in gags or containers...Growing Potatoes in Bags Or Containers

Dave Bross wrote:If you're growing in containers watch for too much heat.
Potatoes pretty much quit growing spuds much above 80 degrees.
This is our major limitation here in FL.

I now know why potatoes didn't work for me.

I enjoyed the little fingerlings that did develop...

Grow bags used to be somewhat expensive.

So I tried a lot of the alternatives like plastic pickle barrels cut in half, plastic grow bags and even the contractor heavy duty woven trash bags.
They all worked but other than the pickle barrels (supposedly 2- 30 year life on those) the effective life was one grow and done. They lack the additives that prevent solar degradation... and we are well supplied with solar here in FL.

There's a line of very inexpensive grow bags out now. I just noticed them this year. The service life should be roughly the same as any other as they're made from woven material extracted from soda bottles.
- Correction on that...these claim biodegrade and are made from natural fabric, says the one part of the description, then down lower claims they're made from recycled bottles???  -
Either way they work well.

I'll post a link to one source but they're everywhere, ebay, amzon, etc. etc

https://www.greenhousemegastore.com/collections/bags-pouches/products/root-pouch-charcoal-fabric-pot

Anne Miller wrote:

Dave Bross wrote:If you're growing in containers watch for too much heat.
Potatoes pretty much quit growing spuds much above 80 degrees.
This is our major limitation here in FL.

I now know why potatoes didn't work for me.

I enjoyed the little fingerlings that did develop...

Many of the tutorials for growing potatoes are for the northern climate. In the south or anywhere spring season is short, timing is critical and the potatoes need to be planted much earlier. I count on the fall planted potatoes to give a reliable yield of new potato in early June although I have to protect them from freeze and frost a couple times( just lay down corrugated cardboard on top). I just checked on some of them, 2 weeks after last frost(4/27 this year), there are 1-2 inches baby spuds developing already, before the plants even bloom.

I also planted seed potatoes the regular way, one month before last frost in March. If weather is mild in May and June, then they will produce well too. But wacky weather seams to be a new normal now and we might get up to 90s quickly.

Anne Miller wrote:Someone on the forum recommended growing potatoes in a cardboard box.

This person said something like "fill the box with dirt, plant potatoes, when you are ready to harvest just pick up the box and the potatoes will fall out  of the bottom of the box."

I thought this was a great idea.

I saw this idea on Youtube last year and decided to try it with a bag of old, rotted potatoes I had sitting in storage. I tried this at the end of July (Zone 3, so very late) and got actual potatoes out of it. I just took four Amazon boxes, filled them with woodchips, added about 3 inches of soil and planted the potatoes. They grew!!! I want to do all my potatoes in boxes this year, too, and need to get them done soon. It was actually so fun!

If you have any farms near buy see about getting their feed bags (might work, many need to punch some holes for drainage.) I get a lot of bags from feeding the birds which I reuse for bagging kindling for winter, trash bags, and many other uses

Saralee Couchoud wrote:I like to plant potatoes in tires.

I'm uncomfortable with tires that close to my food supply. https://permies.com/t/241297/tires-safely

Though I haven't used bags (yet?) this is my second year of growing potatoes in large pots.  I think since its my second year I'm really getting the hang of it.