Digging potatoes from your own garden is exciting and they’re surely the most delicious potatoes you’ve ever tasted! No dirt to dig? No worries - potatoes are easy to grow in containers!
You will need:
Here's how:
If you feed your potato plants they’ll reward you with a bumper crop at harvest. When they are growing in containers potatoes like to be fed once a month until flowering time.
Potatoes have eyes! Actually these ‘eyes’ are little buds that grow into roots branches and leaves. A potato is actually a special kind of underground stem called a ‘tuber’. One tuber will grow lots of new tubers. From one ‘seed’ potato, you can grow enough for a whole family dinner!
Potato plants are burnt by frost. Unless you live in a warm climate like Auckland, it’s best not to plant potatoes in the ground until July or August. But you can still plant them in containers kept in a sheltered place. Or for fun, keep them in a dry dark place indoors and watch them sprout little shoots before you plant them outdoors.
Did you know not every potato is the same? They have different tastes and textures. Some grow super fast. Other varieties are ‘good keepers’ so you can save them to eat a long time after you dig them from the ground. You might pick a variety with a name you like the sound of; like ‘Rocket’ or ‘Swift’. ‘Early’ potato varieties are ready to dig less than 3 months after you plant them.
Design an experiment to find out what kind of soil or plant food grows the most potatoes. For example, plant the same number of seed potatoes in the same sized bags. Then feed each bag with different fertilisers. Be sure to include one bag that has no fertiliser and don’t forget to label them! Weigh your crops after harvest to get your results.
Spuds in a recycling tub
Home grown crop of potatoes