Potato Bin, Buckets and Potato Grow Bags

How To Use A Potato Bin
For the Earliest and Latest Potatoes

Potato bins and grow bags are used to grow the earliest potatoes. They are also used along with raised beds to grow prize winning potatoes for the garden show bench.

Potato bins, bags, and potato barrels fit on any hard surface or small piece of ground open to full light. Try them on your patio or balcony. They give you a convenient way to harvest fresh spuds.

Here you'll discover how you can grow the earliest potatoes for summer salads and the latest 'new' potatoes to eat fresh and roasted for Christmas dinner.

Advantages of Potato Bins for Organic Gardening

potato bin showing a good crop of spuds under the compost

Uncovering part of my 2009 potato bin crop.

Grow the earliest potatoes from containers started in the greenhouse and brought out after last frost,
Grow a respectable crop on small hard surfaces - patio, paved yard...
Grow a cleaner crop by using specially prepared compost,
Isolate your potato plants from some garden pests e.g. slugs,
When growing early varieties this way you can get a crop before the seasonal blight infection,
Give your garden soil a rest from potato growing while you still enjoy fresh home grown potatoes,
Grow potatoes for longer in the fall and harvest them fresh for Christmas.

Potatoes can be grown in potato bins, potato growing bags, large tubs and large clay pots.

How to Grow the Earliest Potatoes

Buy 'First Early' seed potatoes - 'Swift' and 'Rocket' are the fastest to produce - but 'Nicola' is perhaps the nicest to eat.
Begin chitting them in late December early January, how to chit potatoes. Follow this link to find top quality seed potato & potato fertilizer,
Mix your potato fertilizer into a good moisture holding organic compost about 3 weeks before planting and cover, (I use a separate container),
or
get a few bags of potato growing compost such as Humax developed by champion vegetable grower Medwyn Williams.

Work out how many bags of compost you need because it may sell out before you've filled the bins,

TYPE OF CONTAINER	VOLUME OF COMPOST NEEDED
A Potato Growing Kit is available to American Gardeners including potato growing bags and potato compost. Product specification for U.K. Gardeners is noted below.
Potato Barrel	80 Litres	Click here to find more on all these potato bins
Spud Tubs for your Patio	75 Litres
Potato Planting Bags	48 Litres
Giant Potato Bins	40 Litres
Large Exhibitor Grow Bags	36 Litres
Small Exhibitor Grow Bags	14 Litres

Start by filling the potato bins or potato growing bags to about 4-5 inches deep with your compost. Place them in a frost free place such as a greenhouse, polytunnel or conservatory - anywhere to avoid chilly winter air but not over 10^oC is good,
Your seed potatoes are ready for planting when they have robust 1 inch long shoots - no more than 3 per tuber,
Press the chitted seed potatoes (shoots uppermost) into the compost in your potato bins. Use about 4 or 5 tubers per container. Large plant pot sized containers may grow one potato plant each,
Give them a watering with liquid seaweed,
Cover with compost to about 1 inch above the potato shoot tip,
As the potato shoots emerge keep adding your enriched compost so no more than a few inches of shoot remains exposed,
You'll need to move the potato bins outside into their final position before they get too heavy,
It is important not to leave them in too warm a situation as this turns potato tubers into leaves,
A polytunnel may be a productive situation early in the season, but it is important to have cool night temperatures,
If your potato bins are outside from day one, a fleece cover will protect the plants when frost when likely,
Now it's important to keep the compost in potato bins adequately watered, especially in dry spells - check them regularly (indeed every day).
Also, regularly water with potassium rich potato feeds, such as liquid seaweed, tomato fertilizer...
You potato plants may need staking up to support them

Further practical information about
potato gardening is on the main plot ...

Fresh Home Grown Potatoes for Christmas

Strange to say it but the varieties grown for late potatoes are in fact 'early' varieties. Only they can produce a crop in 3 months - i.e. from August to the end of November,
You can buy a few extra of an 'early' variety, delay the start of chitting, chit them with your maincrop varieties, and then don't water them. You will hold them back like this until planting in August,
Alternatively, buy the professionally prepared seed potatoes sold in summer specially for this purpose. look out for them on these links
They can be grown in the garden if your season is long enough.
But space freed up in potato grow bags and potato tubs by July's harvest of 'first earlies' is normally used for planting this late crop,
Planting is done during August - early September,
With saved seed potato tubers you'll probably need to remove spare shoots (except for 3),
Then follow the same procedure as for earlies except...
You might cover over the potato plants or protect them frost. If you can bring smaller tubs into a cool greenhouse then you may be able to extend the growing season to get more or bigger potatoes,
When the leaves die down you can cut the haulms away for composting. Your potatoes will store nicely in the container compost outside until you need them.

Trial and Error with Potato Bins

I first tried these methods years ago with large tough black polythene bags. The idea was to roll up the sides gradually as the bag was filled. In those days I made a soil mix from garden compost and nutrient enriched soil - but I wouldn't advise doing that now. Indeed, using soil makes it very hard work.

Some gardeners reckon that plastic prevents sufficient air getting to the roots. These days most potato grow bags are made of porous material. But with the Giant sized potato bucket I haven't found any problems when using good light compost. Check out the American Potato Growing Kits.

My Potato Barrel Harvest of Red Duke of York

I don't advise making potato containers from car tyres as they are not easy to handle, occupy excessive ground space, a pool of water collects inside, and the hollow shape requires additional filling. They may add toxic compounds to the potato soil.

My first specialised potato bin was the 80 Litre Potato Barrel. It's made of a flexible corrugated material with stiff sides that fold flat when not in use. The sides pull up to give direct access to the pototoes growing near the bottom and it has plenty of drainage.
See my potato barrel with crop & potato tubs >>

Next came the Giant Potato Tubs which are tough and long lasting. They have drainage holes an inch or so from the bottom and can be used for growing other vegetables such as carrots, lettuce, and broccoli. If I'm not using them they easily stack inside each other.

The wrap around potato bins are a nice innovation for patios that give quick access to your new potatoes.

But anyone with enough garden soil space for a maincrop is better using the traditional ridge method. I have used potato bins for maincrop varieties when the garden is already full.

But for the smaller cropping early potatoes the flexibility of the potato bags, tubs and bins, is outstanding. Start them inside and bring them outside when the frosty nights have finished and vice versa in the autumn to prolong the growing season. Even small 12inch containers will fill-up small gaps in your potato crop.

MOST IMPORTANT: give your potatoes a moisture holding compost and keep them well-watered and regularly fed with high potash potato or tomato liquid feeds as they are growing.

Check these links.

Next > Harvesting and Storing Potatoes - from new potatoes to maincrop, discover when to harvest, reduce disease in storage & find helpful tools & accessories.

The Garden Seat - books by experts to help you grow potatoes

Wouldn't it be nice to sit down and watch your soil being turned over ready for planting. I can't quite manage that but the cultivating tool on this link is the next best thing for making easy work of it - then you'll have more time.