Growing potatoes is pretty easy. Back a couple years ago, I wanted to experiment with growing them but all my garden beds were full. I actually have more now but they are also full. I had read somewhere that you could grow those in bags and it works!I would stick with 5-10gal bags else those will be heavy to lift/move.
You can use grocery bough potatoes or bags specially made to plant. The difference with the one made to plant is certified to be almost disease-free.
Let’s get started
You need
- potato ( whichever variety you like)
- soil*
- bag non-woven (example )
*I did some non-scientific testing and it results were that potato grown in “cheaper” soil without compost actually grew better
Instructions
- Roll the side of your bag down until you have about 4 inches left. Fill 3 inches of soil in the bag. Take a potato and inspect all the “eyes”, remove ALL but the best (strongest) one. Some folks cut their potatoes to maximize the number of plants but cutting them exposes them to disease/bacteria. So I prefer to plant the whole potato. Cover with soil and water. Make sure each bag is watered every day, you don’t want to soak them but make sure the soil is moist. After about a week you will see the “eyes” sprouting.
- Once it has grown about 2 inches, unroll the side a little and add more soil, making sure not to recover the sprout. Repeat until you have filled the whole bag with soil.
- Make sure it get plenty of sun
Note that you may notice some “fruits” on your plants, those fruits contain hundreds of seeds. That being said, those fruits are poisonous. They contain a toxic substance and if eaten you can get very ill. Since I have young kids, I prefer not to take any chances and remove them. - Once the plant is starting to dry, take one and pull the plant. You should find some nice potatoes in the soil. If they are all very small, then they are not ready so wait before pulling other plants.
