I love potatoes. You are here most probably because you do to. Your problem could be space, and know-how. How do you go about growing potatoes at home as a first timer and with possibly little space.
Loving potatoes, having relatively limited growing space but more importantly lacking the necessary know-how, plagued me for a descent amount of time.
The picture changed once I mastered a simple straight to the point way of growing them.
Today, thousands of people are growing potatoes at home with limited space in old tyres, sacks and buckets.
So in this post I document the steps needed to successfully and easily grow potatoes in a bucket from home.
This method assumes zero prior knowledge and of course assumes you have limited space. Once you grow your first bucket successfully, simply rinse and repeat the process and you are in for an endless supply of potatoes.
Step 1:- Get some potatoes
We are going to get our potato “seed” from regular potatoes which can be sourced from the farmers market or vegetable section at the supermarket. As shown above, you want your potato to sprout. This is achieved by leaving the potatoes sitting until they start showing signs of sprouting.
Step 2:- Cut potatoes
Cut off the sprouting section of the potato as this is what you will need to develop before planting the shoot. Get as many as you would like to have buckets. Budget for two sprouting skins per bucket.
To facilitate the maturity of the sprout into a mature enough shoot for planting, take skewers or toothpicks and use then to hoist your cut off section over bowl with water.
Set aside on your window sill or counter. Top up water as needed ensuring the potato is not submerged in water. We only want the bottom cut-off part to be in contact/submerged in water.
After some 7 to 8 days of hanging over some water, your potato skin as shown here will be ready for planting. The shoots are apparent and now ready for a suitable medium to progress into fruitful life.
Step 3:- Get a bucket
Remember we are growing potatoes in a bucket, so go ahead and get a bucket. In this case I used a regular 20 liter/5 gallon bucket as shown below.
The handle is deliberate as it will become handy in carry the bucket around even with a fully grown potato plant in it.
Next, overturn the bucket, using a drill or any suitable tool, drill holes to facilitate drainage. You don’t want stagnant water sitting in the bucket when watering. In this case I did four good size holes as shown below. A 10-12mm (27/64″) drill bit will produce good enough holes.
Step 4:- Fill bucket with soil
Next, fill your bucket with soil. The way you will do this is to start by putting a layer of small stones or rubble at the base of the bucket. We want this to help keep the holes below unclogged for necessary drainage. Some folks use charcoal for this purpose. The idea, whatever is used, is to avoid the soil sealing the drainage holes leading to water logging. Potatoes are known to be very sensitive to water logging.
With your base covered in porous material, move on to fill the bucket to about 3/4 with nutrient rich garden soil as shown below. You can also use a mix of potting soil and compost soil. This potato bucket will be organic, so this guide does not consider the use of chemical fertilizers.
Once you have filled your growing bucket with soil up to some 3/4, dig a shallow hole in the middle and put your sprouted potato skin from Step 2. In this case, as shown below, I planted two sprouting potato skins.
Slightly cover the shooting potato skins with soil and water the bucket until the soil is heavily socked and water is draining through the bottom of the bucket.
Set aside the bucket and continue to water the bucket once per day. We are now awaiting the shoots to shoot through the soil as the plant takes root in the growing bucket.
(I will be updating this post regularly as significant developments occur to the bucket until we reach harvest time, stay tuned)
Progress Update 1: So at 2 weeks after planting, we are making very good progress, this is what the bucket looks like…
Progress Update 2: Below is what the potato plant in the bucket looks like at about 4 weeks. Growth has been rapid. The weather warm and the bucket sitting out in the sun.
The plant is looking healthy with great leaf texture. At this stage (4 weeks) I also decided to add some soil as required. Below is what the floor of the plant looks like before I added any soil.
Without following any predetermined amount of soil, I began adding soil to cover the floor of the potato plant basing continued addition on my sight judgement. It was also time to pull out some weeds. This, below, is what it looks like after adding some soil.
Next step after adding some soil, I then proceeded to heavily water the plant to allow the plant to acquaint itself with the additional soil. I have a few more soil additions to follow in my next update in about 1 to 2 weeks.
Progress Update 3: At six weeks, below is how the potato plant looks. I did one more soil add just before watering and taking this picture. At this point the soil is just about filling the bucket if any soil add will happen it will be just a little.
The plant looks healthy and doing well. I am watering the bucket every other day or as and when it looks needed as the summer temperatures soar.
