Planting Potatoes in Laundry Tubs

Home again, home again, lickety split...

I came home to discover a pack of dogs that needed to be petted, chickens that needed to be let out to free range, and some garden beds that needed to be weeded.  It's so nice to be home!

What I couldn't believe is that Kansas City hit a record high temp yesterday of 92 degrees.  My Jeep has a temp guage in it and I was watching it go up as I got closer to home.  When I left Indy, it was 63 degrees.  4 hours later, as I cruised through St. Louis, it was 83 on the east side and 91 on the west side.  Guess I found the front.  :-)

Before I left for the trip, I got ahold of some organic Yukon Gold potatoes and wanted to get them planted but I just didn't get to it so, as the chicks free ranged last night, I took advantage of the time to get that done.  Before I left, I did manage to get the potatoes cut into pieces and they were sprouting nicely.  You'll want some nice 2" minimum pieces with a couple of eyes on each one.

Organic Yukon Gold seedling potatoes, cut and sprouting nicely before being planted.

I debated whether to buy some grow sacks, trash cans or even building boxes, but I ultimately picked up some $5 laundry tubs from Walmart to grow these in.  The main reason I chose those is because they're bigger around and shorter (and I didn't have enough scrap wood to build boxes!)

Growing potatoes like this is pretty easy and I already talked about growing Yellow Finn potatoes in boxes in another post.  Step 1 is to drill some drainage holes in the bottom with a 1/4" drill bit.

You don't have to do a fancy pattern like this.  J. started drilling those center holes without supervision until I noticed and told him they didn't need to be so close.  Just evenly space them.

Then turn it over and fill it with the equivalent of a bag of dirt or about 6" deep.

And then plant the potato seedlings about 3" deep and cover over with dirt.  You'll need to keep the soil moist but not drenched - since it's in a plastic container, these will dry out faster than your in-ground garden or larger raised beds.

And that's it!  As the plants grow, we'll dump in more dirt, leaving just the top of the greenery exposed until the tub is full of dirt.  As mine grow, I'll show you what I mean by that.  We'll also have to build a rudimentary trellis for these, as these are going to get tall!  And, when it's time to harvest, we'll just push the tub over on a tarp and harvest some tasty taters.

Potatoes are easy to grow even if you don't have a green thumb.  So get out there and grow and some spuds!

We're linked up to this week's Tuesday Garden Party, Country Homemaker, Morristribe Homesteader Blog Canival and Homestead Help hops. Go check out what everbody else is doing!