It’s potato planting time!
I think it’s impossible to beat the taste of homegrown new potatoes, and they’re not difficult to grow at all. In fact they’re a brilliant veg to grow with kids; they’re nice and chunky to handle when planting, the kids get to pile soil on them as they grow, and harvest time is basically a treasure hunt as all those lovely spuds are unearthed!
If you’ve got lots of room in the garden or at an allotment, you can of course grow potatoes in rows and get a really big crop, but don’t be put off if you don’t have a lot of space. You can grow potatoes very successfully in a container, and using this method is perfect for small gardens or your first efforts at grow your own. Here’s how to grow potatoes in bags.
Different types of potato to grow
Before you do anything else, it’s worth understanding a bit about the different types of potato you can grow. Potatoes for growing are usually split into three varieties, each named according to the time of year that you plant and harvest them.
- ‘first early’ varieties will be ready to harvest soonest – around June. First earlies are what we traditionally think of as ‘new’ potatoes.
- ‘second early’ varieties are also ‘new’ potatoes, but they take a few more weeks to grow.
- ‘maincrop’ varieties produce potatoes that are best suited to baking, mashing and roasting. They take the longest amount of time to grow, and will be ready for harvesting from late July to September.
It’s really up to you which variety you choose; just decide when you’d ideally like to harvest your potatoes. Once you know this, check out the growing times on the bag to help you work out which variety to go for.
Once you’ve decided which type of potato you’d like to grow, you’re ready to buy your seed potatoes.
What are seed potatoes?
Seed potatoes are potatoes that have been grown with the specific purpose of being replanted to produce a crop of potatoes. The little shoots that sprout from each potato is where the crop will develop.
It’s definitely a good idea to buy seed potatoes as opposed to potatoes which you’ve bought to eat that have sprouted, because seed potatoes are guaranteed to be free of viruses.
How to make seed potatoes sprout
Your seed potatoes need to have sprouts before you can plant them. To encourage this, you need to put them in a cool, dark place; this is often referred to as “chitting”.
You might find that the seed potatoes you’ve bought are already sprouting, this is fine and has actually saved you a bit of time! If not, pop them into a plant saucer, shallow tray or old egg box until they look like this:
How to grow potatoes in bags
When your seed potatoes are sprouted, you’re ready to plant.
All you need is your seed potatoes, some compost and a bag. You can use any large, strong plastic bag to plant them in, for example, an empty compost bag. Bin bags are a bit too flimsy. If you’d like to limit the use of plastic, you can buy specially designed potato planting bags, like the one we’ve used in the picture below. These bags can be reused year after year; as you can probably see ours is a bit faded and battered, but it’s still going strong after a few years of use.
You can also plant potatoes in pots, if you happen to have any spare.
If you do use a plastic bag, you need to make some holes in the bottom for drainage before you start.
Fill your bag about a quarter full with compost; you can roll down the top to make this easier.
How many potatoes can I plant in a bag?
The number of potatoes you can grow in a bag will obviously vary depending on the size of bag you’re using. For the bag shown in the pictures, I plant 2-3 seed potatoes, depending on how big the potatoes are.
Don’t be tempted to plant too many potatoes in your bag. This will just make more plants compete for the same amount of nutrients, and won’t give you a bigger harvest.
Planting seed potatoes
Next, position your potatoes evenly in the bag, with the majority of their sprouting shoots pointing upwards.
Cover the potatoes with another layer of compost, then give them a thorough watering. And that’s it! Now you just need to water them regularly and let them get on with growing, until you see leaves appearing on the top of the compost.
Earthing up potatoes
When your potatoes have produced leaves, it’s time to earth them up. This is simply adding more compost to cover them up again. You need to do this for two reasons: one, to prevent the growing potatoes turning green and poisonous, and two, to increase your crop by encouraging more potatoes to grow on the buried stems.
Unroll the top of the bag as you add more compost. Keep repeating this process until you’ve pretty much filled your bag with compost. At this point you can leave the plants to grow and flower – but keep watering them regularly.
When the flowers start to die off, you’re ready to dig up your harvest!
And that’s it: follow these few easy steps and you’ll be enjoying amazing homegrown potatoes this summer. They really do taste so much better than shop-bought!
Will you be having a go at growing your own potatoes this year? Do you have any tips on how to grow potatoes in bags or containers?
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They are super to grow, I do not have a large space for gardening and I found that this is the very best and easiest way to grow potatoes. I encourage anyone who likes gardening and has small space try this. You can reap the joy of planting and eating your own food.
That’s great to hear Karen, it really does work doesn’t it! Hope you have a bumper harvest this year 🙂
Great post, and great pics. I do this too. Works every time. The only cautionary tale I have is don’t plant before the frosts are over UNLESS you have some fleece (or other frost protector) to put over bags. I’ve been caught out this last week with just that very thing.
Ah that’s a great tip – thanks! We have frosts forecast this week so I’m definitely going to give our bags some protection, just in case. Hope you haven’t lost too many plants.
How many potatoes will grow when you only plant 3 potatoes?
That really depends on how big your container is and the variety of potato you choose, but in my experience you can expect to harvest around ten potatoes for each one you plant. The process of earthing up encourages more potatoes to grow on the buried stems, so it’s well worth remembering to do this regularly.
We would love to try your potato in a bag idea! But we are wondering where to keep the bag. Do you keep it indoors or outside? Which leads me to the next question of what time of year do you plant the potatoes? It is currently the month of March and we live in Minnesota. We would appreciate any advice you could give!
Thank you so much!
Potatoes are an outdoor crop, so you should definitely keep the bag outside. Potatoes are usually planted in early spring for harvesting 3-4 months later, so the next few weeks would be ideal for getting started where you live. Happy planting!
I’ve not tried growing them in a bag before, I may give this a go this year!
Ooh give it a go, it’s really easy and very low maintenance!
What if my potatoes don’t flower?
Not all potato varieties flower, and you can also have a good crop of potatoes without any flowers at all. I would wait until the growth looks like it’s starting to die back, then carefully check for potatoes – if you find very small ones it’s probably worth waiting a bit longer before harvesting.
hello Catherine, first can I say love your site you explain things that I understand, Im trying out for the first time growing veg in my back garden ive grew tomatoes, runner beans, were great now im trying to grow potatoes in growing bags the plants are looking healthy and green but still no flowers on the plants? how long do you think I should wait to see if there is any potatoes under the compost? How long does the flowers comes on the vines? Catherine I know this isn’t about potatoes but I would like to grow mushrooms in growing bags, can you tell me how easy to grow them? people have told me its hard to grow mushrooms out doors? if this is true could I grow mushrooms in growing bag in my spare room where its nice and warm? thank you so much catherine
It sounds like you’re really enjoying growing your own! Not all potato varieties flower, so I think the best thing to do is wait until the foliage starts to turn yellow and die back, then check carefully for potatoes. If you know which variety of potato you planted you can also look up the typical time they take from planting to harvest. I’m afraid I haven’t ever grown mushrooms so I’m not much help with that one! I did find this article over at Thompson & Morgan which might be useful though: https://www.thompson-morgan.com/how-to-grow-mushrooms Happy planting 🙂