Growing Potatoes in a Barrel

Growing Potatoes in a Barrel: Pittsburgh Backyard Farming Style

Our 2013 garden was the first year we tried growing potatoes. We absolutely love potatoes, probably one of our favorite side dish! With our limited space we wanted to be able to grow a lot of potatoes but in a small amount of space. One day we stumbled across an article on Pinterest: “how to grow 50 lbs. of potatoes in a container” when we saw it we just had to try it! As we read reviews and watched YouTube videos we decided to change up/ combine what everyone else was doing. 

Things you’ll need:

1 55 gallon drum

15-20 river rocks

7-10 bags of top soil (add as needed)

6 seed potatoes

Dry Pine needles

Drill

Jigsaw

Step 1 Picking & Starting Your Potatoes:

Around this time of year you’ll start seeing your local greenhouses have potato seeds available. They’ll have short, medium and long season crops. From the research we have done you’re going to want to use a long season crop! This will allow maximum tuber growth throughout the season! Russets would be a good choice!

After you buy the type of potato you want to grow take your seeds home and place them in a sunny/ warm spot. This will allow the seeds to start spouting. After a week you’ll be able to see where the “eyes” are. Now you can either keep the potato whole or cut them in half. Just make sure if you cut them in half each half has at least 3-4 eyes on it. Any less then 3 and you won’t get the maximum tuber growth. (If you decide to cut your potatoes make sure you let the flesh side cauterize or else rotting will occur).

If you are like us you’ll get your potato seeds early and have sprouting eyes all over! So what we do is fill a small 4 inch deep tray with top soil and “plant” our seeds! This will allow the sprouts to grow roots and eventually leaves! Last year we got ours mid March and by the time it was safe for them to be outside we had 6 inch tall plants.

Step 2 Setting Up Your Barrel:

                 

(We actually had potatoes in here straw was to cover from snow)

            Setting up the barrel is pretty easy. The first thing you have to do is drill holes around the bottom to allow water to drain out. We used a 7/16 drill bit and drilled about 40+ holes around the bottom and sides. Next take your jigsaw and cut a “U” in one of the sides of the barrel. The “U” should be 2’x3’ or as big/small as you want it. (This is optional but from our experience it allows more sunlight to hit the young potato plants. As you add soil you can cover the “U” with a feed bag or something).

After you have your holes drilled and “U” cut you can place your barrel in the place you want it. (Make sure that’s where you want it because when you start adding soil it’s going to get heavy).  Once in place go ahead and cover the bottom of the barrel with your river rock. Adding the river rock will also help with drainage, you do not want your potatoes sitting in water!!! With the river rock in place you can now add 3-4 inches of soil and some pine needles. (Potatoes LOVE acidic soil, pine needles are an excellent way to bring down the pH). Your barrel is now ready for some potatoes!

Step 3 Planting Your Potatoes:

            This step is simple! Just take your seeds and place them around the bottom of the barrel. You probably can place 5-6 seeds in the barrel. Be careful so you don’t break off the already growing plant. Next you need to cover the seeds and leave the leafy greens to grow!

Step 4 Taking Care of Your Potatoes as They Grow:

            As the weeks go by you’ll see your potato plant grow, as they grow your going to want to continually cover the stems with soil. When your plant gets to be 6 inches above the soil go ahead and pinch off all the leaves stopping 3 inches from the top. You’re then going to add soil and cover up those bare stems. Pinching the leaves and removing them prevents leaf matter decaying around any new tubers that will develop. Be gentle when adding soil you might even use a small cup to add around the stems. When adding soil you can also throw some more dry pine needles in. The theory is as your plants grow you add soil around the stem and new tubers will form. We found that you don’t want to add soil too fast to the plants, let them grow and the tubers below will grow bigger. We also found that sunlight = tuber growth. The more carbohydrates the potato can form through photosynthesis the more/larger the tubers will be. As the season goes on make sure that your barrel never goes dry. With the holes we drilled and rock we added drainage should not be a problem. Water will also keep the developing tubers cooler in the hot summer heat.

See why we added the food bag? It helps keep the dirt in!

Step 5 Harvesting:

            When the plants in the barrel start to yellow and wilt, you know its time to harvest! All you have to do is tip your barrel over! We’d suggest placing a tarp down especially if it’s somewhere you don’t want 300+ lbs of dirt! Once you have your barrel tipped it’s time to go to town. Just dig/sift through the dirt looking for your potatoes! This is the fun part for us, we enjoyed digging or thr potatoes we have been waiting so long to see.

Conclusions:

So that’s how we did it and well… unfortunately we didn’t get 50 lbs of potatoes. So why are we showing you how to do this??? We feel using a long season crop will/should work. When we did our barrel we used the red short season potatoes. The plants where already yellowing when the barrel was only ½ way to top. All though we didnt get 50 pounds of potatoes we did end up with 23 lbs when it was all said and done.

We will probably give it another try this year but instead use the long season crop.

If there are any questions or clarification needed comment below!


Ashley & Nick