GROWING AND HARVESTING RED VS WHITE POTATOES IN CONTAINERS
look at growing the red potato as well
as the white potato in large containers
and we'll see some interesting results
so let's start with the red potatoes
first they are growing or potatoes from
these cuttings that we took from an
existing potato and these are called the
eyes of the potato and what you need to
do is dry them in the Sun for about a
day or two not more than that and what
happens after that is that the back of
the potato forms a nice hard covering
and it helps prevent rotting when you
plant the potatoes now we're going to
plant our potatoes in this large
container it's it's like of whisky
barrel container but it's longer and you
can get these at your local Costco if
you have one they're pretty cheap during
the spring in the summers now what we're
going to do is place these eyes of the
potato inside this container which has
about around 8 inches of soil and the
soil that we're using here is a mix of
wood chips perlite compost and chicken
manure now in this case I'm using
chicken manure which is an organic
fertilizer we're going to water it after
we plant it so that the eyes settle down
and they will start sending the roots
pretty quickly
and what I do not recommend is growing
potatoes in these five-gallon buckets
now I tried doing this and it was a
disaster the potatoes don't form very
well in these five gallon containers I
mean they're okay but you really need a
large container size to grow potatoes
because they just need a lot of room to
produce large potatoes when you're
growing them but in any case you are
using a similar kind of a soil mix which
is compost perlite and in this case
instead of woodchips I just added some
more sand and some more soil just to
check how it goes but in my opinion most
of the time you're gonna get the best
results by using a combination of
woodchips perlite compost and manure as
you're seeing here I'm not adding any
fertilizer here and that's what I wanted
to show you is how do potatoes grow with
and without fertilizers and what we are
doing here is once the plants grew a
little tall about six to eight inches
from the beginning you need to backfill
the potato plants with some more
planting material and in this case it's
going to be woodchips perlite compost
and chicken manure and you can see that
we just trying to fill the area around
the plants and I've seen some people
asking any questions whether this
technique is really helpful does it work
and we will find out I'll show you when
we harvest the potatoes that the potato
actually forms the fruit or the potatoes
along the sides and here you can see we
have added some more dry leaves you can
add compost you can pretty much use any
kind of medium to backfill your potato
plants now when your potato plant looks
like this the leaves have dried a little
bit you're ready to harvest your
potatoes you can actually wait for about
four to six weeks and leave the plant in
that state so that the potatoes get
larger but in my case I really needed
these potatoes I had to harvest them so
we've entered and harvested these
potatoes but if you can wait
I would suggest you just leave the plant
to die let it become completely dry and
let the potatoes grow in the container
for about four weeks or so and then you
can harvest them now I am just removing
the tops of these plants so that it's
easier for me to harvest and I'm going
to remove all the leaves that I added on
the top and right away you can see the
potatoes actually are formed at the
surface and towards the top part of the
container now if you do not back fill
the container with the soil you're going
to end up with potatoes that are not
really healthy I mean if these potatoes
are exposed to the air they'll become
greenish and they are not really edible
after that so you need to make sure that
you follow this technique you start at a
lower level and then keep back filling
your container with soil as the potato
plant grows so you can record and
harvest our red potatoes
again this is the container size it's a
pretty large container and I recommend
that you stick with at least this size
container or a whiskey barrel container
when you are growing your potatoes so
we're going to just empty out the
container and look at what harvest we
have
and remember that we are not using any
fertilizer we are just using organic
chicken manure and an inert medium which
is woodchips and perlite and of course
the compost also helps not only a
fertilizer but it does supply a lot of
organic material conditions of soil and
is a must so here you can see the
potatoes they look very nice the
potatoes are not like really big and a
lot of people have asked me questions as
to why is your harvest less you know
people expected like pounds and pounds
of potatoes but let me tell you one
thing when you're growing at home your
aim is not to get like a bumper crop
with a lot of heavy produce what you
need is good quality produce and that's
something that you can get by growing
your own by not using pesticides and by
making sure that you eat your produce
quickly not wait for it to come in a
truck after months to your table so here
you can see the soil mix very clearly
it's a very high porosity very fast
training mix and this is the kind of mix
that potato plants really love and here
is the harvest not huge but the potatoes
are pretty nice they're very delicious
and I'm not going to store these
potatoes so I'm going to watch them make
sure that I remove the dirt from these
potatoes and then what I'm going to do
is just consume them within about 10
days or so so again these are the red
potatoes which grew in the large
container pretty good looking potatoes
they were grown in full Sun potatoes do
need full Sun to grow and here's what
they look like once they are washed and
they're ready to go into your table and
red potatoes are very nutrition dense
they actually are better than white
potatoes when it comes to nutrition very
healthy very delicious as well
look at growing white potatoes we're
growing the white potatoes in a similar
sized container this is a whiskey barrel
container it's slightly wider and using
the same technique after the plants
emerge
we are back filling the plant with some
high porosity potting mix and in this
case again I'm using the same mix the
woodchips perlite but instead of adding
manure I do have some compost in there
but instead of adding manure I'm going
to be using an all-purpose fertilizer
which is applied once every month and
we're going to see how that goes we're
going to see whether the potatoes grow
well in that medium now a lot of people
also recommend using something which is
high in potassium and phosphorus
I just think that you will do very well
if you just add an all-purpose
fertilizer you can get water-soluble
all-purpose fertilizers which we use
here and they should do a good job you
can add it every six weeks you don't
really have to add it every month you
just have to see how your plants grow so
I don't add fertilizer all the time if
my plants are growing really well I
might delay the fertilizer application
to like six weeks but if my plants are
not growing that well and they need
nutrition then I'll go for each month
now whether to use organic fertilizers
slow-release fertilizers or salt based
fertilizers is something that you need
to decide there are a lot of options
available once again I'm going to
mention that you know if you don't want
to use animal products you're welcome to
use salt based fertilizers they do a
great job and it will help you grow the
best plants no matter what kind of
fertilizer you're using so as you can
see here these are the flowers on the
potato plant they look very pretty and
overall health of the plant is very good
so instead of just using manure by using
some kind of an all-purpose fertilizer
you can use a slow-release fertilizer
you can also use a water-soluble
fertilizer like I did here you're going
to get a really good crop at home now I
did not get any pests or diseases on my
potato plant but you can expect to get
things like the potato beetles
or worms the caterpillars or thrips and
for that you can use neem oil you can
just spray with neem oil you can spray
the leaves and that should prevent any
kind of diseases that your potato plant
should get and I also did not get any
viral diseases or fungal diseases on my
potato plant group pretty well and once
the leaves became less and less I
started harvesting the potatoes and once
again you can wait a little longer than
what you see here the potato tops will
actually completely dry out once again
you can see the potatoes forming on the
top part of the plant and this is why
this technique this technique where you
plant the potatoes lower inside the
container and then backfill the planting
material is one of the best ways to grow
your potatoes and this really works this
technique works very well so next time
you try growing potatoes do try it out
instead of just planting your potatoes
plot them in a trench if you're growing
them in the ground or the raised bed you
can just dig a trench and then plant
them and then keep filling up the soil
around the potatoes for at least about
16 inches or so they need that much of
space to grow and produce good potatoes
and size wise these potatoes are okay
again I could have waited for a bit
longer
maybe around four weeks more to get a
better produce and to get a bigger sized
harvest but in any case a homegrown
potatoes are on the best potatoes you
will ever eat so do try it out whiskey
barrel containers again are available
very cheap during the spring and the
summer season and once again I would
recommend that if you have a local
Costco do go there check it out they
might still have some in the store
whiskey barrel containers these are
great containers for growing plants and
here we have it these are the potatoes
after washing they look very pretty and
it is a decent sized harvest it's not a
huge harvest and once again your aim
should not be to get a big harvest or a
huge harvest your aim should be to be
able to get very good homegrown potatoes
that you can use they're going to be
much better than the ones at the grocery
store they won't have any growth
inhibitors sprayed on them
there is no pesticide residue on them
and that's what you want when you're
growing your homegrown potatoes so I
hope you liked this video and you
understood the difference between
growing potatoes with none without
fertilizers again the first one was
grown using organic chicken manure and
compost and the second one was grown
using a salt based fertilizer and you
saw the results
