Whitehall Garden Centres Blog

Welcome to Whitehall Garden Centres Blog. We aim to provide you with hints, tips, information and advice on all aspects of gardening! It is a chance for you to ask us questions and to read our blog posts about what you should be doing in your garden each month.

Wednesday 11 February 2009

Grow Your Own Potatoes in Containers


Tips
Potato barrels and larger pots can be used to plant seed potatoes, however sometimes compost can become very compressed due to watering or wet weather. This can be remedied by mixing some form of perlite or organic matter into the soil. This will stop the compressing and not harm the tubers.

How to plant
Use containers with a diameter of at least 30cm (12in) to allow plants to develop. Make sure that there is adequate drainage in the container and then place around 10cm (4in) of compost mixed with perlite in the pot. Add the seed potato and then cover with around 5cm (2in) of compost, continue this process at intervals until the container will not hold any more compost. When your plant is ready to harvest you should find that your container is full of potatoes!!
This method of growing potatoes is good if you have a small garden, do not have a Vegatable Bed or wish to enter a Vegetable Growing Show as it minimises blemishes on the potatoes.

4 comments:

  1. What do you mean "then cover with around 5cm (2in) of compost, continue this process at intervals until the container will not hold any more compost" What intervals?

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  2. You need to put the potato seeds in a container or potato planter and then cover them with around 5cm of compost. You then need to wait until the shoots come through the compost (the intervals) then put another 5cm of compost onto this. You need to repeat this process until the container is full. Hope this explains it better. Many thanks

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  3. Sorry whats perlite?

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  4. It is a lightweight mineral that can help with the drainage when growing your potatoes. You can buy it in bags from the Garden Centre or alternativley to give your potatoes drainage you can put small bits of broken pots or gravel in the bottom to give the drainage a boost and stop the potatoes from moulding.

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