Potatoes in Pot

[Tina Kiernan]

Hi all.. I'm new to this gardening lark, but am enjoying it a lot..!! Not enjoying the cold though, and getting home in the dark - i cant see what happened in the garden..!! Anyway - since i am a renter, i am growing my veg in pots and those great blue recycle bins (thanks to Auckland city council..). Have had a lot of sucess, the big exception is the potatoes.. A total flop, and i dont know why.. i did all the prep, bought seed potatoes from the garden centre, did the mounding up thing - which felt very strange.. but when the time came, i was hugely disappointed - only got 1 pea sized spud..! Has anyone out there managed to get a crop of spud grown in a pot?? if so - how did you do it?? Regards Tina

[Katherine Lucas]

Hi Tina, could you try some of the Maori potato types. I have found that they are very disease resistant. Maybe a worthy experiment. Katherine

[Lorraine Barnett]

Hello Tina
potatoes are pretty easy to grow in a pot... I have always done as I do in the garden. prepare the soil well, good drainage at the bottom of the pot, a few inches soil and then lay the potatoe/s on top of there... Cover with a mound of soil, not too high though.. As the potatoes grow and you see the leaves pop through add more soil to cover the greenery as they grow they should sprout out roots from which the tubers grow on.

I hope this is helpful..... Potatoes are usually planted October in time for Christmas.. Dependant on the type it is. I actually grow mine from the sprouted ones, when I peel them, I cut a piece of the potatoe with the sprouts on and plant them up.

[Debbie L]

Well I read in my organic gardening thing that tyres is preferable to treated timber. I'm going to try in tyres and see how I go. My potatoes are in a cupboard shooting as I type... I hope they hurry up!

[Pigeon Valley]

Is planting in tyres safe - heavy metals etc?
Pigeon Valley

Letitia Shaw said:

Hi Tina - I had a very similar experience, except I was using stacks of old tyres. 15 certified seed potatoes yielded less than 1/2kg of marble sized spuds, some of which had what looked like warts all over them! I can definitely understand your disappointment! I have been reading in a lot of different places recently that the potato/tomato psyllid could be the cause, although this conclusion isn't confirmed. I don't have too many details, but it's a relatively new bug to our country and likes spuds, tomatoes and capsicums. Apparently this bug doesn't do too well over winter, so if you live somewhere not too cold, you could maybe try again during the cooler months :-)

[Robyn Wolfe]

Hello. The other writer is right about the new disease. It can be controlled with Neem Oil (organic) available at Mitre10. You can tell if you have it - there is a sugar like substance on the leaves. Or you could have given it too much nitrogen which means it would put all the energy into producing leaves rather than fruit.The disease can also get tomatoes... it puts a hard brown ring under the skin of the fruit. The great thing about gardening - there's always next season. Let's know how you go!

[Letitia Shaw]

Hi Tina - I had a very similar experience, except I was using stacks of old tyres. 15 certified seed potatoes yielded less than 1/2kg of marble sized spuds, some of which had what looked like warts all over them! I can definitely understand your disappointment! I have been reading in a lot of different places recently that the potato/tomato psyllid could be the cause, although this conclusion isn't confirmed. I don't have too many details, but it's a relatively new bug to our country and likes spuds, tomatoes and capsicums. Apparently this bug doesn't do too well over winter, so if you live somewhere not too cold, you could maybe try again during the cooler months :-)