Potatoes

[vegnovice10]

My daughter has just given me some desiree seed potatoes as she had too many. We are both novices at this. I have a bed about 5 foot square, 154 cms. As the directions say plant each potato 30 cms apart, about a foot, and have rows 70 cms apart, 28 inches I can't get many in and still have a surplus. Is there any way i can plant more? thanks

[Lesley Jay]

Hi VegN, well if you stick to traditional planting distances then you can't fit any more in. But nowadays so many people are growing in containers and potato growing kits which normally contain 5 seed potatoes so these are sown really close together. I have just had a read about T&M's potato barrel and they say that the roots and potatoes will be tightly packed together. So if you can plant close together in a potato barrel then why not in a bed?? Harvesting might be tricky as you will not have much room to dig the fork in.

This is not something I have tried but one year my OH left a load of volunteer potatoes in the ground. The following year when they started growing I left them alone and we dug them up as early potatoes. They weren't properly spaced out or in rows but they gave us some delicious early Desiree potatoes. I know Desiree is a main crop potato but they were lovely!!

[vegetable-gardener]

I had too many potatoes last year to go in my vegetable beds so I put them in pots - they were large pots. But they grew really nice potatoes, so I recommend that.

[Lesley Jay]

Hi VegN, I have just had another thought (it does happen sometimes!!). If you were growing using the square foot method that would give you 25 square feet with one seed potato planted in each square foot.

Using pots or containers is a good idea and you can use buckets with one seed potato per bucket.

[vegnovice10]

Thanks for advice. Have planted 2 in a compost bag (daughter had seen this done on Jamie Oliver! ) Too hot on garden now so will plant rest tonight or tomorrow morning. Will plant one per square foot as suggested and see what happens.

Really grateful for all advice. Susan

[vegetable-gardener]

I grew some potatoes like that last year 'Pink Fir' ones. I didn't have anymore room in my raised beds so I planted 2 in big pots 14" wide and filled it with soil as we had some spare. They grew really well and we had a good crop. This year I am using them for tomatoes.

[vegnovice10]

Managed to finish planting spuds this morning before the rain set in. Put one per foot so hopefully that will give me plenty of spuds. Will let you know the results! thanks for all the advice.