growing potatoes in bags?

sweetnest

Hi

I will be growing potatoes for the first time this year. I will have 20 tubers.

I have a prepared vegetable area but as i have heavy clay soil, i am thinking this isn't the ideal place.

I am thinking maybe of buying 40 litre compost bags, putting them upright and planting in them, or buying heavy duty rubble bags.

My question is, would this work ???

tanith

It works fine I did it for the last two years, the yield isn't as good as planting in the soil and pots are an excellent way of improving a clay soil so I'm told... but if you do it in the bags you need to empty out two thirds of the compost and roll down the bag , plant the pots, then as they start to sprout you add compost and slowly roll up the bag till its full again.. covering the sprouting shoots with the new soil..the potaoes form on these long shoots.. so it really has to be done that way if in bags.. its the same as earthing up if they were planted in the ground..

yorkieorchid

I have never grown potatoes in bags. How many potatoes would you put in one 70l compost sized bag please?

sweetnest

thanks Tanith

i was thinking about putting 5 tubers in a 40 litre bag, sure someone will correct me if thats not right

tanith

Sorry but the bags I used were just old compost bags turned inside out so I'm not sure how much compost they took... but I put 3 seed pots in an average size bag of compost... as I said you don't get a huge yield but we got a couple of weeks worth of dinners from them... and they tasted delicious

tanith

sweetnest wrote: »

thanks Tanith

i was thinking about putting 5 tubers in a 40 litre bag, sure someone will correct me if thats not right

5 tubers sounds fine to me, I did wonder if I could of put in more

TonyMMM

The more tubers you put in each bag, generally the smaller the potatoes you harvest will be. I started off with 5 per bag, but have now gone down to 3, with much better results.

ginvzt

The potato bags I bought say they have capacity of about 40L, and you should plant 3 potatoes per bag.

If you put too many, you will have lower yield from them I would have thought - they need space to grow.

However, if your soil is clay, you can still grow them in your garden. Potatoes don't mind heavy soil - proved by my grandma many years, where she used to have a reasonable size plot to grow potatoes at the edge of the village that was clay and had very good yields of potatoes.

sweetnest

thanks all, shall get 4 bags and plant 3 each in and will risk the other 8 in the ground, that way im guaranteed some spuds, lol

A._Badger

Just make sure you feed them if they are in bags and don't put more than three in a 40 litre bag (arguably, three is pushing your luck a bit). Few composts carry more than about three weeks feed, so you will need to liquid feed regularly to get a good crop. Use a high Potash fertliser like Phostrogen, Chempak 4 or a tomato type.

djohn2002uk

The people who sell the potato kits sell 5 potatos per bag and as long as you put some Growmore in just under the surface before placing the tubers and some more when they are half way up you should get a good yield. That gives me plenty anyway, as good as in the ground and lovely and clean.