Tip:
Highlight text to annotate it
X
Hi, Christy Wilhelmi from Gardenerd here and today we're planting potatoes in pots. Now
I have two different pots here for a reason. One is that we were sent a trial pot, a new
pot by the guys at CowPots. CowPots makes pots out of manure, dairy cow manure. So it
breaks down and fertilizes the plants when you plant them in the ground. So we're going
to trial this and grow potatoes in them next to a pot that is ceramic of the same size.
Let's see how they do. Fun, you know, fun and experimentation. It's all good. So what
I've done, is I have filled these pots with about 6 inches of good quality potting soil
and I've thrown down some organic vegetable fertilizer. I'm going to mix that in so that
the potatoes that we put in here are going to have something to feed upon as they start
to grow. Now, choosing potatoes. Ideally you can order organic disease-free seed potatoes
from places like Wood Prairie Farm in Maine, for example. They have really good quality
stuff. But if you happen to have scanky potatoes in your pantry, you can totally use these.
So these are, in fact, scanky potatoes from my pantry that had started to grow eyes. Ideally
the kind of potatoes that you want to plant are potatoes that have short stocky eyes,
thick bushy eyes on them like this. And each piece should have at least two eyes on it.
So this is a pretty good piece. And I set them in an area where there was light but
not direct sunlight, because you don't want toxins to start forming under the skin. And
let them develop bushy eyes. Now a lot of people, when they cut the potato pieces they
let this part scab over for a few days. But we're not going to do that because, you know,
there are equal amounts of people who say you don't have to. So we're just not going
to. So what I'm going to do is place these, two a piece, in each pot. Now with a pot this
size you can probably plant three, maybe four seed potatoes, but I only had two that looked
really awful so that's what we're using. After you put them in there, point the eyes up if
you can, and then we're going to add some potting soil. So I'm only putting enough potting
soil to cover the seed potatoes about six inches. I'm not going to fill the pot all
the way. Why is that? Well, because we want the potatoes to develop as they grow, so when
the foliage starts to come above the soil level, I'm going to add more soil, and that
way you'll develop more and more potatoes as the foliage starts to grow. So eventually
this pot will be full of soil, and I'll even mound soil up over it, but for now this is
as far as we're going to go. Water this well, put a plant marker in there so you remember
what's in there. Check back later and we'll be reporting back on how these did in these
containers. The cool thing about this is when you're ready to harvest, you don't have to
dig, you just tip the pot over. How easy is that? So if you like what you see, like, subscribe,
and share this video with your friends, and visit Gardenerd.com for more information about
growing your own potatoes in pots and in the ground. Happy Gardening!