The $100 Potato, from start to harvest

Potato Bucket Gardening

This year I am going to try growing some potatoes in buckets. I’ve seen a number of videos and it appears to be very easy to do. So here’s my plan for this year and how I’m starting the process.

The $100 price tag is steep (it will be next to nothing next year) but I want to show you exactly what I’ve done and the results using what should be the best equipment and healthy seed potatoes I could find so it will be factual and if you desire, be able to duplicate what I’ve done. Naturally you can use any container you have and buy the potatoes from an organic source that has not treated the potatoes with an anti-sprout agent. For the next crop that is what I plan to do!

I have not planted the seed potatoes yet. I need a couple more weeks for the sprout to get 1-2 inches long and then I’ll cut them up, wait another day or two so the cut will skin up then plant.

The Ingredients:

I purchased 8, 5 gallon buckets, 1 lb of organic Yukon Gold seed potatoes enough for 8-10 seeds, Black Kow compost soil and Vermiculite to develop a 50/50 mix soil mix which makes up the $100 potato. I will use all these components again so the next planting will cost nothing additional except for fertilizer.

Bucket Preparation:

Drill 8, ¼ holes evenly spaced through the sidewall all around the very bottom of the bucket. Potatoes need a well drained soil.

Shading the Buckets from the Sun:

Here in Florida the sun gets intense. By the way Florida does produce a large crop of potatoes every year, we even have a town in that area that’s called “Spuds”. So to prevent baking the potatoes in the soil I intend to shade the side of the buckets. Not sure what I’ll use at this time but will be simple like a 4x8 foot Styrofoam insulating sheet simply cut into a 12 inch width to form a plank and lay it against the side of the bucket to block the suns rays. I’ll know for sure in about 4-6 weeks when it has to be done.

Soil Mix:

Create new soil using 50% Black Kow and 50% Vermiculite for a loose, well drained but still having moisture retaining soil mix. I will mix up all the soil I will need for the season and store it in a small garbage can so as the potatoes need to be covered with additional soil as the grow I’ll just take the premixed soil from the garbage can.

I plan to re-use the soil:

After harvesting the potatoes I will pick out all the old roots and simply add more mix to fill the buckets again.

Planting the Seed Potatoes:

I filled the buckets ½ full with soil and then planted the potatoes so the top of the potato body, not the top of the sprout, is 2 inches below the surface. Also, research has indicated the most potatoes rarely form below the initial seed depth but above in the layers of soil continuously added to cover the new growth.

Hilling the Potato Plants:

When the plants grow about 6 inches high I will begin hilling the plants. Maybe adding 2 inches of soil at a time until the soil is about 1 inch from the top rim of the bucket and then let them finish their growing life cycle.

Fertilizing:

Immediately after planting I will add fertilizer with the initial watering, about 1 inch of water, and then every two weeks using a hose end sprayer apply the water/fertilizer. The fertilizer I will use is Scott’s Miracale-Gro 21-8-16 and their hose end sprayer. I’ll apply equally to the eight buckets by watering each bucket for 1 minute or about a ½ inch of standing water.

After the Harvest:

After the growing season and harvest I will clean, save and amend the dirt for next year then repeat the process.

So what is My Potato Choice?

The Yukon Gold! Why? Because it is reasonably interchangeable with the Russet Burbank (Idaho) when making my favorite foods like baked potato, french fries, mashed potatoes, potato pancakes, use in soup and potato salad recipes. If I need to thicken soup recipes like the Russets are good at, I can hand mash the Gold’s in the pot and have acceptable creamy results.

Harvesting:

Most potatoes are ready for harvest 80 - 115 days after planting. If you plan to store the potatoes after harvest then the plant should be allowed to mature (die) before harvesting the potatoes. Harvest those potatoes about two to three weeks after the die off. A mature tuber will store much longer than an immature tuber.

If a plant has not begun the maturation stage on its own you can induce maturation by cutting off the tops of the plant at dirt level. Then Harvest the potatoes two to three weeks later.

To harvest I will simply dump the bucket on a hard surface like a patio or driveway and pick out all the potatoes.  Then clean the soil by picking out all the roots and other debris including any green potatoes and discard those, then shovel up and save the soil for the next growing season.

Each 5 gallon bucket should yield 2-5 lbs. of potatoes. Most potato plants have just 5 to 10 mature tubers. Potatoes can be harvested before the potato plant dies if you want "new potatoes" which should be about 1 to 2 inches in size.

I purchased the seed potatoes from, Urban Farmer http://www.ufseeds.com/

The following are the instructions from their website:

(“Approximately 8-10 potato seed pieces per pound. Usually 3-6 potatoes that can be cut into more pieces to plant.

Organic - Best seller and an excellent keeper!
Attractive, smooth, thin yellow skin, shallow eyes, yellow flesh and uniform yields. Lends itself well into any method of potato preparation. Immensely popular since its 1981 release from Canada. If you like your fried potatoes golden brown, Yukon Gold will almost turn that color by themselves. Yukon Gold is also favored by top chefs for making traditional mashed potatoes, the ones that are made from the all American Russet potato. However, with Yukon Gold, your mashed potatoes are golden and beautiful to both the eye and the taste. When first harvested, Yukon Gold shows unique pink eyes not seen in other yellow varieties. They are best when home grown!

Product Details
Zones: 3-9
Planting Depth: Dig a 6-8" trench. cover with 3" of dirt and leave remaining dirt for later.
Spacing: 12" apart in same row. Place 20-26" between separate rows.
Sun/Shade: Full Sun
Germination: 7-14 days
Days to Maturity: 65 days
Plant Height: 18-24" inches
Comments: Great tasting potato for any meal or use.”)

Here’s the photo’s of building the bucket garden:

The buckets with the ¼ inch holes drilled in the side wall at the very bottom.

The fill line measured and marked for the initial soil fill level.

The 8 buckets with the Black-Kow and Vermiculite mixed on the garage floor, a total of 4 cubic feet.

After filling the buckets half full of the soil mix I stored the other half in a 30 gallon garbage pail. I will use this soil for the hilling of the potato plants.

Here’s where the plants will live, next to my garage wall.

The only sunny place I have and that’s only half a day.

3-17-12 Planted

It’s been two weeks since the seed potatoes arrived. The seed potatoes had no sprouts and I had to wait for that to happen before planting. Last week while waiting I decided to go to the health food store and pick up some organic Yukon Gold potatoes and wait for them to sprout and plant those in 5 buckets. They will be grown in a side by side comparison test for size and yield against the 1 lb of seed potato seeds in the 3 other buckets.

There was a noticeable difference between the seed potatoes and the organic potatoes I bought. The seed potatoes (the 3 on the right) were soft and not healthy looking plus the sprouts developed on one end, so I will only have 3 buckets using those. $7.95 for three seed potatoes is not a good deal so they better produce. If the organics produce well then that will be the only ones I’ll purchase in the future.

The organic ones were $6.00 for 5 lbs. They are firm plus sprouting faster than the seed potatoes and from multiple sides. In fact the whole 5 lb bag has sprouted! I will have 5 buckets of these.

The only thing I did to the organic potatoes was gently scrub them with a terry cloth towel and plain water, which apparently wasn’t necessary as the rest of the 5 lb bag has sprouted without being touched.

The seed potatoes

I planted each seed potato whole, with the largest sprout facing up in the center of the bucket with the top of the potato about 2 inches under the surface. It’s a bad picture but the potato is resting in a conical hole and when back filled will leave the top of the potato about 2 inches below the surface.

  

3-30-12

They’re breaking through the surface so they must be happy. Now when the plants get to about 6 inches tall I will add 2 inches of soil to begin the mounding process. The mounding will continue until the soil reaches the top rim of the bucket.

  

4-13-12

The potato plants are growing fast. The first 5 buckets I have hilled to the top of the bucket so they're on there own now. Notice the last 3 buckets, those are the seed potatoes I bought and they are not growing nearly as well as the organic ones in the first 5 buckets. I guess I have to wait and see if they produce better than the organics, I kind of doubt they will.

  

5-2-12

Plants look good

5-15-12

Die off begins

6-9-12

Die off almost complete

  

6-9-12

Decided to cut the plants off at this stage and will harvest in one week.

Here you can see the soaker hose used to water the plants. The hose is tied into my automatic lawn sprinkler system so I never forget to water them. The hose was simply attached to the bucket with a wire tie. It worked great!

6-15-12 The Harvest from the Buckets

Here’s the typical bucket harvest of the commercial seed potatoes

Here’s the typical bucket harvest of the supermarket organic potatoes used for seeds. The sizes for the large ones are three inches.

For the $100 Potato project I used a total of 8 buckets and here are the results from my first bucket potato growing experience.

Yields:

Commercial Seed Potatoes:

Bucket #1 = 17.0 oz

Bucket #2 = 19.0 oz

Bucket #3 = 11.5 oz

          Total 47.5 oz

Supermarket Organic Potatoes used for the Seeds:

Bucket #1 = 32.0 oz

Bucket #2 = 22.0 oz

Bucket #3 = 24.5 oz

Bucket #4 = 23.0 oz

Bucket #5 = 34.0 oz

          Total 135.5 oz

8 bucket total; 183 oz (11.43 lbs)

Conclusion:

Overall, growing potatoes in buckets is easy and needed almost no maintenance. I did expect the typical field grown yields between 2-5 lbs from each bucket but as you can see the yield was just under 2 lbs per bucket. I’m now wondering if they needed additional fertilizer, I’ll study this and if so try more frequent applications for the next crop.

For those with no garden space or just a patio or balcony, bucket gardening is a great way to practice growing food crops. By the way they tasted great!