Growing Container Potatoes

Sally Davidson
Feb 29, 2024
5 min read

There's nothing quite like eating your very own home-grown potatoes, whether they're roasted, mashed, baked, boiled or chipped - you just can't beat 'em!

The solution for many space-starved gardeners is to grow their potatoes in containers; indoor, outdoor, on the patio, on the neighbours patio – wherever you can find a gap.

There are however 3 very important rules to follow:

- Don’t crowd them – each plant needs roughly 10 litres of space to grow into,

- Water your plants well as being contained, they’re unable to reach out for further moisture

- Allow all excess water to drain away freely. Stagnant water facilitates root rot and disease.

Of course, growing container potatoes has some sound practical benefits too. By trapping your tubers within the confines of a container you’re;

- freeing them from soil-borne pests and diseases such as eelworm and scab,

- giving yourself the opportunity to try lots of different varieties of potatoes without worrying about things like crop rotation and getting plants mixed up,

- creating a fun and experiential learning activity for your kids.

SELECTING THE IDEAL CONTAINER

You don't need to use a conventional flower pot, just about any vessel will do the trick - as long as you can drill or poke holes in it to allow for free drainage.

Choose a container with a height of at least 50cm as you’ll be needing to add growing medium throughout the growth process.

Here are some of the most popular pot alternatives:

- specially designed potato bags / sacks, available at most garden centres and DIY stores,

- tyres, which you simply stack and fill as your potato plant grows,

- buckets, which are well suited to single potato plants,

- old bath tubs,

- shopping bags,

- heavy-duty black bin bags, and

- animal feeding troughs.

People grow potatoes in the most bizarre places - old boats, trailers & pick-up trucks, an unused kitchen sink, old cupboard drawers, old suitcases, and the list goes on...

I'd love to hear of the strangest place you've seen a potato plant growing. Email me a quick descripion or pic if you've seen something completely outrageous.

BEST VARIETIES FOR CONTAINER PLANTING

If you don't know much about potatoes, then read my post GROWING POTAOES no-dig for a description.

First and second early varieties work best for container planting and have a short 10-16 week cycle - depending on which variety you choose.

My personal all-time favourite variety for container planting is a Salad Potato with firm, creamy, oval-tuber called ‘Charlotte’. My other favourites are the nutty-flavoured ‘Anya’ and the flavoursome ‘Lady Christl’. There are many ‘earlies’ readily available such as ‘Red Duke of York’, ‘Orla’, ‘Rocket’, ‘Accent’, ‘Maris Peer’ and a few more, so try them all out and find your personal favourite.

“My idea of heaven is a great big baked potato and someone to share it with." Oprah Winfrey

CHITTING

Your spuds are going to need to produce sprouts before you can plant them – a process known as ‘chitting’ by the potato gurus.

To do this, you need to find a supportive container to balance your seed potatoes on for a week or three while they sprout. I use old egg boxes for this.

Lay each seed potato with the majority of its ‘eyes’ facing upwards. Don't stress if you can't find its 'eyes' - just perch it on the egg box and within a week the first shoot should emerge from somewhere on your potato.

Place the egg box in a bright but relatively cool place to encourage the shoots to grow. Each seed potato needs to prduce at least two thick shoots. Don’t obsess too much about this process – the idea is to give the tubers the best head-start possible before you plant them as you're not likely to get a plant in a hurry from an un-chitted potato.

Once your seed potatoes have sprouts at least 1cm long, they're ready to plant. If they have more than 4 sprouts, then carefully rub off the weakest sprouts leaving 2-4 thick sprouts to become the main growing stems of the plant.

PLANTING

It may help to add some additional drainage material such as gravel or broken up polystyrene to the base of your container before adding the growing medium. You only need to do this if you feel your container may not drain as well as you'd like.

Add 15cm growing medium and press it down nicely to firm it, without squashing it. Plants don't like aerated and fluffy soil. They prefer dense, firm, yet penetrable soil.

After experimenting with various composts, potting and growing mediums over the years, I've come to favour a good quality home-made compost to any that I've bought. It's quite important that the compost has reached a temperature of at least 60 degrees centigrage in its decomposition process to burn off unwanted seeds, bacteria etc. A good compost will not only provide great moisture retention, but will also eliminate the need to feed or fertilize your plants during their growing process.

Spacing is very important when planting potatoes in containers, so if you're tempted to plant an extra seed or two in your container, you're only doing yourself a disservice. Overcrowding will only result in pathethically small potatoes, if you're lucky enough to get any at all! Space seed potatoes 30cm apart (if you can fit more than 1 in your container) with their shoots facing upward.

Cover with 10cm growing medium, but don't compact it this time. Water it well on this occasion and place the container in a nice sunny spot.

As the shoots grow and foliage emerges you'll need to give the plant a good soaking once a week, allowing the growing medium to almost dry out between watering to promote steady potato formation.

When the stems are 15-20cm in length you'll need to 'earth up'. This is a simple process of topping up the growing medium to cover the stems and any exposed tubers of the plant, while leaving the leaves exposed. You'll probably need to 'earth up' 3 times during the life of your plant.

HARVESTING

Soon after the plant comes into flower, the first tubers will be ready to remove. It’s hard to judge the size of your potato crop from above, so bury your hand in the soil and have a feel around. Feel for the tubers, pulling free any that have reached the size of your preference. By feeling about like this and removing only what you need, you'll be able to prolong the period of consumption while allowing the plant and its remaining tubers to continue growing.

As soon as the foliage begins to yellow and sag then it’s time to tip out the contents of your container and claim the remainder of your harvest.