Potatoes might be the oldest domesticated crop.
Potatoes are one of the oldest of all cultivated crops. It is believed that the potato originated in Chile and has been cultivated for at least 10,000 years.
It took about three decades for the potato to spread throughout Europe after the Spanish brought it back from the New World. At that time it was cultivated primarily as a curiosity by amateur botanists. This was perhaps due to its relationship to poisonous plants. It wasn’t until two hundred years later that the potato gained wide acceptance as a food crop throughout Europe and North America.
Normally you plant pieces of a potato, each with one or two eyes. Throughout the growing season you weed, fertilize, water, and harvest when the tops die down.
Digging potatoes is a fall ritual in gardens everywhere. There is another method, though, one in which you don’t plant the seed potatoes in garden soil.
Have you ever heard of growing potatoes in a trash can?
I read about this method of growing potatoes many years ago. More recently it has been the subject of speculation in at least one gardening forum.
First you cut the bottom out of a new plastic trash can. Set it on the ground and add two to three inches of compost in the bottom. Lay your seed potatoes on the compost and cover with a three inch layer of straw.
As the potatoes grow, you cover their stems with more straw. Be sure to leave the top three sets of leaves uncovered so they continue to grow. When the plants reach the top of the trash can you stop adding straw; just water and fertilize as usual.
Because a large portion of the plant is buried under several feet of straw, many potatoes are formed along the buried stems.
Harvest is easy; you simply remove the trash can and the potatoes are easily reached from the sides of the resulting cylinder of decomposed straw. Because the potatoes are not grown in soil or dug with a shovel, they have fewer cuts and bruises.
A positive side effect of this method is that the straw in the trash can breaks down and turns into rich loam during the course of the growing season. If you have an area with poor to modest soil that you want to improve, grow a trash can or two of potatoes on it. After you remove the trash cans and harvest the potatoes, rake the residual soil smooth. Then turn it under to decompose completely and enrich your new garden bed.
I’ve often wondered if you could translate this to square foot gardening and use a five gallon bucket set in a single square foot. Because of their small size, they could probably be planted with only one or two seed potatoes.
Has anyone ever tried using five gallon buckets to grow potatoes in this way?
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that sounds wonderful, the way i heard was to use old tire, adding another as they grow, but love the pail. and as an aside, so happy i am not the only one who feels life is right if i have dirt under my fingernails! happy gardening!
Thank you very much for the great article. You gave a very easy step by step instruction on how to grow potatoes in a trash can, a beginner like me is now excited to give it a try.
Best of luck with your potatoes Paulita. Stop back and let me know how they turn out.
-Sharon
Caution! Some varieties of potato work well this way, others not at all! I tried it with tires and got diddly-squat in one pile, more in another, only difference? Variety of potato!
Try to use black trash cans or buckets. The media will be warmer, rather like using tires.
Cut the bottom out of the trash can, place it with the bottom up. That way you have a tapering cylinder with the widest at the bottom and easier to remove.
Have done this and got a ridiculous number of potatoes. More than I needed.
Tires hmmmm what are the chemicals possibly leaching out of the old tires……