GardenDesk

Potato Plants to the top of the Garbage Can

There seems to be more interest in growing potatoes in a garbage can this year. I have seen several garden bloggers doing it. I don't remember them all, but my friends Tracy at Outside and Gina at My Skinny Garden both have good starts of potatoes in a can growing.

I am very pleased with the progress of my can-o-taters so far. The plants have reached the top of the can.

It has been easier this year because I had another can of good compost, peat and soil ready ahead of time. Last year I was always scrounging for some good growing medium. Soon I will add the rest of the soil mix and the can will be completely full. It will be good timing because the potato plants are beginning to bloom.

With this method, it is hard to rob the plant of "new" potatoes early in the season like I do with other planting methods.

With the garbage can potato method, I'll wait for the plants to die back, dump the can over and harvest a whole lot of spuds!

After the can is full of soil, the only thing for me to do for the rest of the summer is to be sure they stay well watered. Then its time for baked potatoes, mashed potatoes, home made french fries, scalloped potatoes, potatoes au gratin, hash brown potatoes .....

Potatoes in a Garbage Can?

I really enjoy trying new things in the garden. It makes my friends and neighbors consider my vegetable garden as "weird". For me though, the weirder the better. People think its odd that I grow white and black tomatoes, that I use strange methods for supporting those tomatoes, that I don't garden in rows and that I grow many things up tall trellises.

My new "weird" thing in the garden is growing potatoes in a garbage can!

This is not my original idea, but it is a great one. You drill a bunch of holes in the bottom of the can, fill it with a foot of good compost and soil and then plant the seed potatoes. You probably should only put four potatoes or cured potato pieces in the can but I over did it a bit.

Then you cover the potatoes, water well and watch 'em grow. When the tops get about a foot tall you add about six more inches of good soil to the can, burying the lower portions of the stems. Keep that up all summer and eventually the can will be filled to the top with soil and compost and the plants will be growing out of the top of the can.

More tubers will form all along the stems that you buried so at harvest time you will have a whole can full of potatoes! This is my first year trying this, but I know it will work. I have seen other gardeners do it successfully and I have applied this principle on a smaller scale before. For the past few years I have grown potatoes in a small raised bed and added extra wood sides and more compost as they grow. My 10-year old daughter even did this last year in
her garden. If you don't want to have an ugly trash can in your garden and you, unlike me, don't want to be called "weird", you could at least try my daughter's wood box around the potatoes idea. You could probably even add it to some of your existing potato plants.

As for me, these aren't the only potatoes I'm growing but I am looking forward to playing with my ugly blue potato can at the end of the garden. I planted them a few days ago and now they have sprouted!

Weird gardening is fun.