Potatoes in grow sacks

General tips / questions on seeding & planting

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Primrose
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This is the first year I've grown potatoes. I mixed ordinary growing compost with composted manure and a handful of chicken pellets for the top-up mixture and now have luxurious greenery sprouting about 3 feet above the top of the bags. However, I'm now wondering whether all this extra nourishment was too much of a good thing and whether all the plants' energies have gone into producing a rainforest of greenery rather than potatoes. Obviously I won't know until I harvest them but should I have such a vast amount of greenery from a container? The shoots are now looking very tall and lanky. Is there anything I can do to rectify the situation as I've never seen potato shoots this tall when grown in the open and fear I'm doomed to disappointment..
Essexboy
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Hello Primrose,
I would not worry too much, I grow some potatoes in large tubs every year and this method seems to lend itself to the plants producing a lot of stem/leaf. As with most plants, a surfeit of nitrogen can cause a lot of lush green growth. I tend to use a weak mix of tomato feed when watering them (same plant family) This seems to do the trick.
Watch out for potatoes near the surface as the crop matures, as you can end up with green tubers. I use black bin liners on the suface of the compost/soil to stop this happening. You can cut the bags to fit them round the stems. Hope this has been of some help.
Regards, Essexboy.
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naturediva
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Hi Primrose this is the first year I have tried growing potatoes in sacks and like you and essexboy have and abundance of greenery shooting out of the top - so fingers crossed it is a 'normal' occurance and we have a good crop.
Thanks essexboy - earlier today I was looking at the potato plants and wondering about their height and also what I'd do as they continued to grow, bearing in mind that had they been in the ground I'd have been 'banking up' - so will use your idea of black bin liners across the surface as the crop matures :D
It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Black Elk
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Johnboy
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Hi Naturediva,
Towards the end of the potatoes life and the greenery becomes a nuisance it can be cut back by about half or simply gathered, tied and tucked out of the way. Some people have the thought that by reducing the foliage more energy is available to go into the spuds. How true this is I wouldn't care to say. Probably an old wives tale!
JB.
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Primrose
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Glad I'm not the only person sporting a mini-forest. I'd really like to be able to re-use this compost again next year if I'm successful with my potato crop. Looking forward, Do you think that once I've harvested the potatoes, if I mix in some grass cuttings and other compost back into the bags and store them in a warm sunny place everything will rot down quickly enough to be able to use the same compost again, possibly with the addition of a little manure or other fertiliser?
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I wouldn't use the compost for potatoes again, Primrose, for fear of carrying any diseases forward. I certainly save the compost from my four large potato bags every year and use it to grow the spring bulbs and bedding plants (wallflowers, stocks, sweet william) with the addition of a bit of Growmore and, in the case of the wallflowers, garden lime.

After that (in fact I have just done that) the compost goes out into the open garden to improve the soil.
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naturediva
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Thanks Johnboy, good idea, I may well gather and tie the abundant foliage sometime later.
Primrose, I also put used compost on the garden and just dig it in as a soil improver and always start afresh with new compost when growing veg or plants in tubs to get them off to a good start too - well that and fingers crossed and a word with the gods :D
It may be that some little root of the sacred tree still lives. Nourish it then, that it may leaf and bloom and fill with singing birds. Black Elk
David
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My bags are quite tall (collapsible green things from the Pound shop) so I was thinking I would plant extra leeks in them as they have the depth.

See a problem with that?

Thanks

David
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Primrose
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Don't see any problem with growing the leeks but if they get very big and grow very deep you might have a problem harvesting them if you want to get out one at a time without disturbing the roots of all its neighbours. However, if you harvest from the outside of the bag it might be possible to roll the bags down over themselves and remove the outer ones more easily without disturbing the rest. Some of my leeks grow very deep in the soil and it's not easy to remove them without digging them out with a fork.
RoRo
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I planted my new potatoes (Swift) 12 weeks back, there is no sign of any flowers and the greenery is half the size of my Charlotte (2nd early planted 10 weeks back) which are also in flower.

As the Grow sacks advertise new potatoes in 7/8 weeks and the Swift is an early maturing variety I was wondering if I should dig up a Swift and see what going on under the soil. The greenery is not as lush as the Charlotte but it doesn't look as if "blight" has arrived yet.
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FelixLeiter
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RoRo wrote:I planted my new potatoes (Swift) 12 weeks back, there is no sign of any flowers and the greenery is half the size of my Charlotte (2nd early planted 10 weeks back) which are also in flower.

Have the labels got switched? Charlotte does not flower and produces very short haulms. Have a little dig around your "Charlottes" to see if tubers have formed.
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spike-j
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My swifts are in over 3 months in the green house and no sign of flowers either- I couldn't wait any longer and went ahead and emptied the first bag- enough potatoes for 3 meals (2 adults and child) (think 4 tubers in originally).
I was pleased but wonder how many meals I should expect to get!

Spike-j
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Primrose
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As a first time grower of potatoes in bags I can't wait to harvest them, partly because I'm sure that all these newspaper adverts you see depicting a "see through the bag" image with the soil absolutely crammed with potatoes is a bit of a con. Can anybody who grows potatoes in this way confirm this? I'm half expecting to harvest just enough for two or three meals and will be very (and agreeably) surprised when I start delving around if I find the potatoes all jostling so closely toether that they are packed like sardines.
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Smurfy
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My potato barrel last year wasn't packed like sardines but there were quite a number of potatoes.

I agree about the adverts - I was bought my potato barrel last year and the advert shows you elegantly pulling the outer rim up and the potatoes and soil cascading out the bottom. The actual sight was of me and my husband stood on the rim grimmacing as we tried to move the outer part. we then abandoned ship and dug out the soil roots and potatoes by hand. Not quite as glamorous but the spuds were lovely!
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Primrose
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Can anybody give me some advice please? We had to move our three potato growbags to another part of the garden. Previously I knew which variety was in which bag by its position but my OH, trying to be helpful, moved them and now I don't know which is which. I'm growing Charlotte, Pink Fir and one other variety whose name I can't remember. Only one bag has flowers growing from the greenery and I'm trying to guess which one this might be, i.e. an earlier variety than the other two.
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