Potatoes in grow sacks

[Smurfy]

I don't know if it helps but Pink Fir have slightly redder stems than the other 2.

[mendy]

i too hav potatoes in bags with lots of greenery and awaiting flowers

[David]

Hi All

If Charlotte don't flower how do I know when to harvest them?

Had a feel around the bag and unless they were having fun and scurryinmg away from my hand as it approached I have very little to show just now....

[Primrose]

I've also had a very light ferret around in one bag (didn't want to disturb anything too much) and also can't find much evidence of many potatoes. I have this vision of harvesting a single potato the size of a tomato and thanking my lucky stars that I wasn't relying on the crop to feed a family in an African deprived starvation country. Do the biggest potatoes come from the bottom of the bag where they've had a longer growing time with just little marbles at the top nearer the surface of the compost?

[Smurfy]

That's what i found last year Primrose. I had to harvest all potatoes in september because of the blight and although there was some large potatoes near the top of the bags there were significantly more larger ones near the bottom.

Let us know how you get on - i'm going to have a ferret today to see if i can find some potatoes in one of the bags as fancy some new pots for tea!

[PLUMPUDDING]

I was rather sceptical about the advert for four varieties of potatoes - 6 of each - producing "up to 100 lb of potatoes" in grow sacks. I suppose the operative words are "up to". The earlies are used quite small so won't weigh much, the Yukon gold tastes lovely but is a low producer, so they would have to do very well with the main crop varieties to get anywhere near 100 lb.

I found the tops grew quite tall in my grow bags this year and put canes down the sides and supported them with twine to stop them flopping about.

I've just emptied the Red Duke of Yorks out of two grow sacks as the tops had started to go discoloured and got 5 lb of very nice potatoes from 10 seed potatoes planted. I think I neglected them a bit and would have got a larger crop with a bit more TLC, but they are lovely clean potatoes and taste delicious, so I'm not disappointed.

I've just thought, they were only very small seed potatoes I used this year as I had almost eaten them all before I remembered to save some.
I've saved 10 of the largest for next year's seed potatoes. I put them in one of the net bags that oranges come in with a label firmly attached and keep them with all the other varieties netted and labeled in a paper sack in the coolest part of the cellar, these are then stored in the outhouse covered with an old duvet for frost protection over winter.

I've been doing this for years and so spend hardly anything on potatoes. I started with certified seed, and only buy new when a variety no longer seems as vigorous or if I want to try something new. I wouldn't save any if there had been a disease problem, but so far there hasn't been.

[David]

This is very interesting, keeping your own seed potatoes.

If I keep some Charlotte from these bags can I re-use them as seeds this year for Christmas spuds? Always wanted to try that.

[PLUMPUDDING]

This year's seed may not have had a long enough dormancy for the starches etc to change to produce potatoes for Christmas. The ones they sell for Autumn planting have most likely been in cold store from last year.

[David]

Ahh ok thanks I;ll look out for those.

[Primrose]

I'm wondering if I've been mislead about the possible success of growing potatoes in sacks/containers. I've mostly been using compost transferred from Growbags (supplemented with composted manure) and so far, after a very gentle exploration, can't feel any potatoes in any of my containers. Do potatoes grow successfully in such a light growing medium? I'm beginning to suspect they need a heavier growing medium such as the heavy loam or even clay soil in which they're grown in open ground. I know it's not quite harvesting season yet, but I'm beginning to suspect that when the time comes, I'm going to empty all my containers and find that I've grown absolutely zilch. Can anybody who has successfully grown potatoes in containers/ sacks relate their own experience please. There seems to be very little technical advice about the growing material required to successfully grow potatoes by this method.

[Monika]

Primrose, I always grow a few early potatoes in potato sacks and large pots, simply because I start them off in the greenhouse and they then go outside, much earlier than we would be able to grow them outside direct.

I use about two thirds of potting compost (usually Arthur Bowers with added John Innes) and one third well-rotted cow manure. I also liberally sprinkle in Osmocote slow release fertiliser when planting the seed potatoes. Now that they are just starting to flower (Charlotte, Kestrel and Anya), I have just fed them with some specific potato fertiliser. I haven't proddled about in them yet, because they have only just started flowering, but usually we get a fairly decent crop of many but quite small potatoes.

One thing to watch is that they don't dry out - the bags particularly need an awful lot of watering.

[PLUMPUDDING]

I've emptied two growsacks today they had 6lb of potatoes in total from 10 small seed potatoes. The potatoes were Salad Blue which I grew from micro propagated plants two years ago, so the seed potatoes hadn't grown very large. They are much larger this year so I've saved 10 good ones for next year.

I put loam mixed with well rotted horse manure in the bottom four inches and filled the rest up with potting compost with a handfull of Osmocote mixed in. I've watered them with tomato fertilizer.

I noticed that the roots had gone into the manure/loam mixture, but that nearly all the potatoes were in the compost. I don't know if that answers your question , but I suppose if I'd only used compost the roots would still have gone down to the bottom of the grow bags so I think they would be quite happy in a light medium so long as it didn't dry out. I always put some sort of real compost in if I can as it is much better at retaining water as well as adding nutrients and putting a bit of life into the sterile stuff you buy.

By the way, Salad Blue aren't salad potatoes, but have the most amazing colour. I like them in their jackets and when you cut into them they are a wonderful deep blue. They taste good too. I'm going to try some mashed and see if they keep their colour.

[JohnN]

My growsacks also have lots of foliage, but one of them (with Charlotte) has wilted and leaves have gone brown - blight? I had sprayed with Bordeaux mixture! Anyway, this made me empty it and I got about 20 spuds from four originals. 10 were reasonable size, the rest very small but usable.
John N

[Colin Miles]

Charlotte and many other potatoes often don't produce flowers so you need to look at the foliage to judge when to start 'digging'. If you can put your hand down into the soil and pick a potato or two from each pot - if you have more than one pot. That way you allow the plants to continue growing.

I started growing potatoes in 13.5 litre black plastic pots a few years ago and have grown some or all since then. This year I am growing all the plants in pots - 1 per pot. It is very important to keep them well watered as they soon dry out in this hot weather. As for yields, the first year I was getting around 3lb per pot - probably due to the exceptional weather - with one giving 9lb 6 ozs (had to prise the potatoes out). Nothing like that since.