Growing potatoes in containers has become an excellent method for many farmers worldwide. It has many benefits when using this method to grow your potatoes on your lawn. It would be accessible for sparing the plants, and it saves time on crawling along the garden at the time of harvest. It helps to deal with weeds and makes it easy to deal with insects.
When you want to grow potatoes in containers, you have to choose the best and most suitable container for planting. Using this method, there is no need for a bigger plot in your garden to plant potatoes in containers, and you will use a small part of the garden since your plants will be in containers.
What to Consider When Selecting the Containers
There are some factors to consider when selecting the containers, including:
1. Capacity
Potatoes are root crops; hence, they need the most space below the ground. It’s different from the other crops, where you will be required to consider the plants’ height and the manure specimen’s spread.
2. Depth
You have to provide enough depth to allow vertical growth and mounding. When the tubers are produced, pounded layers of soil will be added around the stem to create many growing spaces and completely cover the development of the potatoes.
3. Drainage
Growing potatoes in containers requires more water; hence, you need to make sure water is available any time it is needed because growing in a contained environment is better than on the ground, which means the substrate will probably dry up quickly. Ensure a few large drainage holes in your chosen planter, or use one made of porous material.
When growing potatoes in containers in layers, you need to start with 3–5 layers of fertilized soil in the bottom of the container, mixed with a couple of handfuls of organic manure.
Steps to Growing Potatoes in Container
There are several methods for planting potatoes; here are the five steps you must take. This will be helpful to people who are looking for how to grow potatoes in a container indoors.
1. Prepare seed potatoes
2. Picking container and placing the soil
3. Plant the potatoes
4. Fertilizer and watering of the potato plants
5. Harvesting
Problems Growing Potatoes in Containers
All potatoes grown in containers face maintenance challenges, causing many people to fail to deal with the issues. The problems are faced when the daytime is sunny, and it heats the roots of potatoes. This may be why potatoes are mainly grown in containers.
The second problem with growing potatoes in containers is a significant dwarfing effect caused by the containers since the plants sense that they are too close to each other, making them produce small tubers.
Another problem is growing potatoes when the plants do not emerge after planting seed pieces. Most potatoes are treated to prevent sprouting. This mainly occurs when growing potatoes in containers with straw.
When you discover your potato plants’ leaves are yellowish and slightly curled with tiny shiny specks, that is a problem caused by planting the potatoes in buckets, containers, or straws.
Growing Potatoes in Containers in Winter
Most potatoes are grown in containers during the winter season. As long as the winter is warm, you can grow potatoes indoors when you put them in containers.
When you want to grow indoors, your potato plants may be as warm as the winter season; therefore, you will need to find some sun spots unless you grow them by putting them in a container.
Potatoes can tolerate a light frost, but it’s hard to frost, and freezing might cause the plant to die above ground. When it dies in the soil, the plant can also send up roots, especially in the underground part of the plant. It may be impossible to harvest your tubers when it has been cold for a long time.
Growing Potatoes in Summer
When it comes to the summer season, the planting of potatoes is now becoming a problem, and you will be required to rinse the potato plant regularly. When you want to succeed in growing potatoes in both layers and containers during the warm season, it will be necessary to rinse twice a week or even three times a week.
Many farmers are trying to find an answer to the age-old question of when to stop watering potatoes in containers. Here is the clear answer: don’t panic; continue growing potatoes.
When to Feed Potatoes in Containers?
Every two weeks, from the first week of May to the first week of September, you need to feed the potato plant with tomato feed as recommended by the agricultural officers.
This duration between May to September is the best time of the year in terms of growing potatoes.
When fertilizing potatoes in a container, start with a layer of 2 to 5 good potting soil mixed with a handful of organic fertilizer. There are different types of potato fertilizers available on the market.
Below are just five of them:
1. Organic fertilizer for potatoes.
2. Urea fertilizer for potatoes
3. Potato fertilizer N-PK-Ratio
4. Earth organic vegetable fertilizer
5. Espoma organic bone meal
Which is the Best Fertilizer For Potatoes?
There are many types of potato fertilizer in the world, some of which have been highlighted above, but the best among them is the one that contains low nitrogen, less phosphorus, and potash. When you have all this, you can group them in a ratio of 5:10:10, respectively.
The best reason for this is that, as you develop a potato plant, it should contain less nitrogen to prevent the top from becoming too lush and susceptible to disease. The high amounts of phosphorus and potash are helpful for the potato tubers to be healthy and grow large.
