GardenBanter.co.uk - View Single Post

02-06-2003, 09:56 PM

(ROBERT O'REILLY) wrote:

i heard that you can take a 55-gal. drum,put about a foot of soil in
it, and plant potatoes. as the folage grows, keep adding soil till the
drum is near full. let grow for whatever time a potato takes,(never
grew them before), and dump the drum, yeilding alot of potatoes in a
small space. heard this will work for sweet potatoes as well. anyone
have any insight on this?
thanks for any and all info.

I'm trying this with a small container. So far (3 weeks) no luck but
we've had such wet weather a number of plants stalled. If the drum is
too deep a limited amount of sun will get down into the drum (only
when sun is higher in the sky). I don't know if this is an issue.

Also harvesting.... The tubers at the bottom will be the most mature.
I'm not sure if there is issue with leaving potatoes in the groung too
long. I've read you need to leave them a long time to get really big
spuds. The timing of the harvest is what I'm not sure of. Too early
and you may have a bunch of spudlets instead of new potatoes near the
top. I guess it depends upon how quickly the plant grows up. My book
recommended waiting till the top growth was six inches tall, then
covering the bottom 3 inches.

DiGiTAL_ViNYL (no email)