New here potatoes n pots Dallas tx

[Txyogagirl]

I'm new and need a ton of advise on feb 1 I planted some potatoes n a deep container then after searching on Pinterest I seen all the cool container pot to harvest them easy now I'm worried how will I get the potatoes out without damaging them. I planted them in a tall deep pot. I also did tomato seeds got my first sprout today. I have a ton of questions about gardening somebody in my climate please help

[Gary350]

I don't do raised beds or pots, I tried them many years ago but I might grow potatoes in a raised bed this year because we have spring rain every day March to June garden is a swam too wet for potatoes. If you have potatoes in a pot dump them out. In the past my best potato crops were grown in a stack of 3 car tires. I have never had good luck growing tomatoes in pots but some people on the forum claim they do, I think everyone has a different idea what good luck is. If I can not get 75 lbs of tomatoes from each plant that is not good. When I lived in Phoenix AZ area Nov 1st and Feb 20th was a good time to plant a garden.

[applestar]

It IS possible to grow potatoes in a container, but your mileage/the results will vary depending on how they were planted and your own expectations.

Tell us the actual dimensions of the pot and how many seed potatoes you planted. -- Seed potatoes are small chicken egg sized potatoes and larger potatoes cut up so they each have 2 to 3 "eyes" growing points.

I'm a bit concerned that you said "some" potatoes in "a" container.

[rainbowgardener]

But the basic answer is that you are going to harvest all your potatoes at once. You wait until the potato plants are all done and wilted to the ground, then you dump the pot out and harvest your potatoes. It is very difficult to harvest them a little at a time in that set up, though after your plants have flowered and you think you might have some potatoes, you could try gently feeling around with your hand, see if there are any baby potatoes near the surface you could find without damaging the plants.

I share applestar's concerns about how many potato eyes you planted in what size containers. Potatoes are pretty good sized plants (remember they are a close relative of tomatoes, which will tell you something if you have ever grown tomatoes) and can't be crowded too much. Each eye will be a potato plant

Also, you probably know you can put your potatoes down near the bottom of a deep container, with just a few inches of soil under them and then fill it until there's a couple inches of soil over them. You can't fill the container up. AFTER the potato plants sprout and grow some leaves, then you fill in a little more. When they grow more, then you can fill more. But remember that the leaves are what gather energy for the plant. You have to always leave it plenty of leaves unburied. Eventually the container will be full. The reason for this is the way potato plants grow:


The seed potato is at the very bottom. The area of root between that and the above ground plant is where the potato tubers grow. Growing potatoes in the ground, they don't have to be real deep, because the roots can spread out horizontally. In the container, you have to give them plenty of room between the seed potato and the surface, but you can only do that a little bit at a time. If you buried the seed potato that deep to start with, the shoot would never make it above ground to see the light and grow leaves.

I will say that I tried this method of potato growing for several years. Personally, the potatoes I got were always between marble size and golf-ball sized. People do claim you can grow full sized potatoes that way (the containers I was using were 50 gallon garbage bins cut down a bit), but I know I'm not the only one that never succeeded at it.

[ButterflyLady29]

I tried potted potatoes a couple times. Once I got a decent harvest, once I got nothing because the mix got hot and compost happened, cooking the tubers. The last time I tried it I never got a chance to harvest them and they got frozen and turned to mush.

I've seen mixed results on youtube, one even had mixed results in their own pots in one season. There was one in which the person built a 5 foot tall potato tower and had lovely plants but no tubers. I saw some things that possibly resulted in the poor harvest. One mistake is continually filling the pots. If you keep covering leaves then the plant can't produce tubers, it spends it's energy growing a longer stem and more leaves. "Hilling" is done mainly to keep the growing tuber from getting sunburn. Another issue is digging or dumping the pot before the plants die back. If the plants aren't done growing neither are the tubers. And in containers, water and nutrients are a huge, often overlooked, issue. Not enough water and no tubers are formed. Too much water and they rot. The nitrogen content of the soil is very important, too much and all you get is leaves. Also the soil should be more on the acidic side.

The best potato crop I got was the year I laid the started tubers on some roughly worked soil and spread a foot of straw over them. Once the plants were growing well I added about a foot more straw. I really should have spread newspaper between the layers of straw because a lot of the tubers had some green on them. But the tubers were really big and came out nice and clean.

Whatever you do, don't spread a thick layer of freshly mowed grass over potatoes. Hubby did that to mine once and I didn't realize it until a couple days later. By then the piles of grass were steaming hot and the potatoes had been baked. Those were some that I had grown and saved over the course of 5 years. And yes, I do know you are supposed to start with new, certified disease free seed potatoes every year. However the plants and tubers had always been healthy and free of blemishes and they grew and produced well in my heavy clay soil.

[jal_ut]

Growing potatoes? First, you cut the tuber in pieces with only one or two eyes per piece. Plant the pieces 2 inches deep spaced 12 to 16 inches in a row. Rows 30 inches apart. When the plants are up and a foot tall, pull some soil from the side up around the plant. This hilling is to prevent the newly developing tubers from seeing the sunlight. If they see sunshine they turn green and get a bad taste to them. You only do this once. That story about adding a little now and a little later and a little later is bull junk.

Hey if planting in a pot, plant one tuber with two eyes in the pot. Have the soil level be down 5 inches or so then when the plant gets up well you can add a couple more inches of soil to make sure the tubers are covered.

[Txyogagirl]

Thank u to everyone who replied my concern now is I put too many in one pot. We live and we learn right.

[Gary350]

Potatoes do good in pots you will not have a problem getting the harvest out of the pots, dump it out. Don't give potatoes nitrogen or you will have lots of vines with no potatoes. Potatoes need potash. Wet soil will rot your potatoes. I think the reason my stack of car tires works is because it works like a raised bed it keeps the potatoes out of the mud we have rain almost every day for 3 months in the spring.