2008 Garden Update - Potted Potatoes

I've been planing to plant potatoes like this for a couple of years now, but have never gotten ahead of things early enough to do it. This year, thanks to a little planning and some good luck, I will get it done.

You can see the pots that I'll be using. They're approximately 18-20" in diameter, and about that deep. I was at a local small family nursery late last week, and asked the owner if he had any old large sized planters that I might be able to buy from him. As luck would have it, he directed me to the back of one of their workshops and told me I could have whatever I wanted from there. SCORE, recycled pot's for free!! Rule number one for effective scroung... er... um... acquisition of otherwise unused materials... (much better) is that you never know unless you ask. And please, ask before you take.

Anyway, so I got the pots. Now I needed some fill. I was able to get some fairly decent topsoil from a construction site that was in the neighborhood, and supplemented it with a nearly equal portion of compost. I also turned in a little vermiculite, and some straw to add to the tilth of the soil, and help with drainage.
Here you can see what I did at the bottom of the pots. I lined the drain holes with, and a placed a thin layer of straw at the bottom of the pot again to help with drainage. Soggy potato plants make for disease and poor harvest from what I've read.


Here you have a couple of the finished pots, filled halfway with the potting mix. I don't think I should need more soil than this, at least to start with. As the plants begin to grow, I will add more straw/soil mix on top to help to boost production, eventually adding a mesh frame to allow me to pack straw around the plants and continue growing up.

All together I have 9 pots to plant in. Here's my question for you; how many plants would you put in each one? I was initially thinking I could support three seed pieces, but is that too much? Any experience with planting taters in pots anyone? Comments are appreciated.

Till next time..

P~