Tuesday, April 19, 2011

Patio Potatoes

Another experiment!

Always looking for another way, I set about finding a way to grow potatoes in containers. My limited garden space and my expanding desire to grow more plant varieties left me with little choice but to rely on container gardening for a few of the vegetables--and potatoes made the cut. I planted French fingerlings, Russian bananas, and a yellow-fleshed variety whose name escapes me at the moment. I know I was supposed to plant seed potatoes, but instead I went straight to Fresh Market, bought bags of organic potatoes, and stuck a few of them into each pot. 

After watching several You-tube videos and reading about the necessity of hilling potato plants, I came up with the following set up. The plants are "hilled" with a mulch of dried leaves and straw, and now that they have reached the top of the wire cage, they are going to have to fend for themselves. 

A few blossoms are appearing on one of my plants. Hopefully there will be more. I'd like to say I grew the potatoes that go into the potato salad I make annually.  Any more potatoes than that would require that I take another road trip to drop them off to family members who are already master potato growers. 

A small harvest would be fine. I'm pretty sure I'm going to get my wish.