Growing potatoes in a pail.

[Big Cliff]

So this is the first time I have tried it. Started off with 2" of soil in the pail, seed potatoes and 2 more inches of soil. As they grew I kept adding soil and now the 5 gal pails are full of soil and the plants are huge and in flower. When should I start to harvest them for maximum results. 

 

[Fisherman]

The flowers and foliage determine when to best harvest your crop. Harvest baby potatoes (new potatoes) two to three weeks after they've finished flowering, and harvest potatoes for storing (mature potatoes) two to three weeks after the plant's foliage has died back.

[Big Cliff]

Well curiosity got the better of me and I decided to see how my potatoes were doing so I harvested my first pail, 4 about the size of a hard ball, 4 about the size of a golf ball, about a dozen the size of grapes and a bunch of smaller ones. 4 more pails will be left for later harvests but all in all I am quite pleased with the results and would do this again.

[crappieperchhunter]

Glad to hear you got something from your experiment Cliff. Boiled new potatoes with butter salt and pepper are one of my favourite things from the garden. Just so much better then store bought.

Edited July 19, 2023 by crappieperchhunter

[bigugli]

Some folks will plant bucket potatoes, but have a tomato plant growing with them.  

We had our first feed of new spuds last week.  Will dig some more with the grandkids

[akaShag]

Just reading this now........what are you using for the soil?

Doug

[Big Cliff]

16 hours ago, akaShag said:

Just reading this now........what are you using for the soil?

Doug

Dirt lol.

Jk, for years now I have been composting all my vegitable scraps and anything else other than animal/fish protine (trying to not attract critters). In the fall I add as much mulched leaves as I can. This usually yields about 3  5gal pails of good compost every year. I mix this with a couple of bags of tripple mix and use this for my gardens. This year I  used it for my pails and as I  harvest the pails I plan to just dump that soil back into the composter and mix it back with fresh compost hopfully eliminating the need for buying more tripple mix. 

The only down side I can find with growing in containers so far is that they have to be watered pretty much every day so if it doesn't rain you have to do it via some other method. As for pros, easy harvesting, little or no weeding, use of space that might otherwise go unused and lots of fresh produce. 

[akaShag]

3 hours ago, Big Cliff said:

Dirt lol.

Jk, for years now I have been composting all my vegitable scraps and anything else other than animal/fish protine (trying to not attract critters). In the fall I add as much mulched leaves as I can. This usually yields about 3  5gal pails of good compost every year. I mix this with a couple of bags of tripple mix and use this for my gardens. This year I  used it for my pails and as I  harvest the pails I plan to just dump that soil back into the composter and mix it back with fresh compost hopfully eliminating the need for buying more tripple mix. 

The only down side I can find with growing in containers so far is that they have to be watered pretty much every day so if it doesn't rain you have to do it via some other method. As for pros, easy harvesting, little or no weeding, use of space that might otherwise go unused and lots of fresh produce. 

I have been meaning to do this for some number of years, but never got a round tuit.  But now I have one.  😉

Doug