Ground' Rules for Container Potatoes

Growing Potatoes in Containers

Buy your seed potatoes as soon as you can and break them free of their nursery bag or net. We’re going to sprout them first – a process known as ‘chitting’ by the potato gurus. Lay your tubers with the majority of ‘eyes’ facing up. Place them into a supportive container such as an egg box and keep them in a light but relatively cool place to produce stubby, dark green shoots. Don’t obsess too much about this process – the idea is simply to keep the tubers fresh until you are ready to plant them. This can be from very early spring if you can offer some protection from frost, or mid spring if not.
Add some additional drainage material such as crocks or broken up polystyrene to the base of your container then fill with about 10cm (4in) of your growing medium. You have a few options here. Multipurpose potting soil works well, but I bulk this out (mainly to save money!) by mixing it with good garden soil and some of my own garden-made compost. You can also add a couple of handfuls of organic fertilizer, such as chicken manure pellets, for good measure if you wish.


Space your seed potatoes, sprouts uppermost, evenly throughout the container. Cover with another 10cm (4in) layer of growing medium then sit back and wait. As the shoots grow continue to add further layers of potting medium until you reach within a whisker of the rim of the container. Remember to water and feed once or twice with your liquid feed.

Some 'Ground' Rules for Container Potatoes

Don’t worry, there aren’t many of these. The most important rule is to match the number of seed potatoes to the size of container you are growing them in. As a rough guide each potato plant needs about 10 litres, that’s just over 2.5 US gallons, to grow into. Cramming your potatoes in is a false economy, the result being very small spuds, if you’re lucky enough to get any at all. A typical garbage can-sized container would hold around four plants. Potato growing sacks sold specifically for this purpose, would house three. It really doesn’t matter what container you use, so long as it has adequate drainage holes at the base to allow excess water to freely drain away.

When to Harvest Your Potatoes

It’s hard to judge the size of your potato crop from above, so plunge your hand in and have a root around! The first tubers will be ready to enjoy soon after plants come into flower. Feel for the tubers, pulling free any that have reached the size of a hen’s egg, or allow them to grow on to your preference. As soon as the foliage begins to die down it’s time to tip out the contents of your container and gather the stragglers. By feeling about like this you will be able to prolong the period of eating, while allowing plants to grow on and swell those tubers that remain.
The best way of serving them? That’s entirely up to you and partly governed by what variety you plant. My absolute preference is firm new potatoes served steaming hot with a curl of butter sliding over them, all topped with a generous sprinkling of garden-grown parsley. Pure heaven!

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