Help Growing Potatoes

any help would be much appreciated!

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Welcome to Gardeners Corner Orange.

If you use grow bags they need feeding after a few weeks, there's not a great deal of nutrient in them.

If they were soggy, that sounds like they were diseased. Did you sow shop bought spuds that had sprouted?

 

Potatoes grow from the stem above the spud you planted and below where the leaves grow. If you extend this section of underground stem by earthing up the spud as it grows this section elongates. More stem from which will grow more spuds.

The magical ingredient you need is a good depth of soil. If you try growbags again, stand them on their end and empty out most of the soil and after ensuring there are drainage holes in the base (that was the end). Roll down the sides of the bag.

Plant your spud and just keep covering the stems to the base of the leaves with soil. Don't cover the leaves as they need to see the sun to soak in the light and grow.

Keep adding soil and unrolling the gro-bag doing this until you run out of gro-bag soil. Keep it well watered. You can expect spuds. :happydance: Cheers, Tony.

 

Spuds do really prefer to be in the ground. I only have a small veg area in my garden, so grow a few potatoes in large bucket size pots - I imagine you are in a similar position regarding space. Kleftiwallah's suggestion above is one solution or you could try large pots, either way the earthing up procedure should ensure a nice crop. - Oh by the way only try Earlies or Second earlies and not Main-crop varieties.

a-a

 

I cant see spuds doing well in a grow bag. Spuds need:

* To be protected from frost
* Loads of nutrients. This is where the grow bag would be a massive let down.
* Space. Again the grow bag would be a let down. They just don't hold enough compost. They're only about 25 litres aren't they?
* Plenty of water, BUT
* Free draining soil
* Light

If spuds go hungry, you'll be lucky to get any spuds off the plant. If they go thirsty, you'll get tiny ones. If they spend any length of time sat in wet soil (this is why it needs to be free draining) they'll just rot right where they are.

 

Good evening Orange and welcome to the site. The problem with growing in bags is judging the feeding and watering, if you can`t grow them in the ground then use large pots at least the drainage will be correct then.

 

Alex's post just about says it all. The bigger the pot the better or as an alternative try big rubbish/bin sacks. Grow bags are too small.
I grow a few earlies in big pots in a polytunnel but don't get a big crop though do get them early. I also grow some in my compost heap and get a big crop.

 

Woah! massive help guys! I think there were drainage holes but obviously as they were upright and on concrete i think the concept of drainage was slightly impeded, Doh! my bad, but theres a lot of adivce here, i really appreciate, thank you all ! hopefully we'll have mash for weeks this time round

 

Grow bags are fine for spuds ... but not in the original grow-bags!

You could cut the bags in half, and stand them on end, but they are really too narrow a diameter to carry a good yield.

So you'll need some larger diameter pots, or some "Potato Gro-sacks" (and then you can get 3 or 4 tubers per-pot or bag)

I put 4"or so of rotted manure in the bottom, an inch of compost on the top, then the tubers, then cover with some more compost to 1/2 fill the container, then sprinkle some Potato Fertilizer at that point, then wait until the hulms are fairly well above that, then "earth up" using more compost as they grow. I use spent compost for the earthing up (stuff left over from failed pots last year, but nothing that has grown Potatoes (or Tomatoes / other family-members) before).

 

Thank you Kristen lol