I did plant two bags. One bag I made a mistake and used cut green grass instead of compost or soil or even dried brown grass. This mistake was for material to add to the bag to cover 1/2 the green growth of the stalks. What ended up happening was the decaying green grass clippings and the hot sun, created a nice oven effect and I actually cooked my green potato stalks and killed the plants.
So, I said the green growth and concept works. I obviously need to work on this. Here is the picture of the potatoes I got from the bag that grew extremely nice potato stalks. Time to laugh!
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| Potato Green Growth in a Trash Bag: Gary Pilarchik |
Above is how the Summer progressed with green potato stalks growing and I raised the bag and tended to it as designed.
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| Growing Potatoes in a Trash Bag: Gary Pilarchik |
The above bag is loaded with composted and material. It is September and the stalks died away as intended. Over the summer as the potato stalks grew, I keep adding material to cover 1/2 of the new growth. The strategy is to keep covering the stalks to create more potatoes. Each inch of buried potato stalk will root out baby potatoes. Good theory.
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| Tearing Open a Potato Grow Bag: Gary Pilarchik |
I tore the bag of potatoes open or at least what I though would be potatoes. You can see some of the potatoes I found!
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| My Hand to Give Perspective to Potatoes: Gary Pilarchik |
Well, (laughs) that is, above, my production of potatoes in a trash bag grow bag. So, back to work next year. That is the beauty of gardening. I'm not sure what I did wrong but I will spend the Winter learning about growing potatoes. Well at least there is some great composted leaves for next year.
Hey there. First of all... love your blog. Very well done and love all of the pictures. Just curious what you used for seed potatoes. It's odd that you got that much stalk growth and very few and tiny potatoes. I did potatoes for the first time this year and had pretty good success. I didn't use bags though, I just stuck the seed potatoes in the ground. Was just wondering if you used potatoes with sprouts from the grocery store. They are often sprayed with growth inhibitors so that may have been the issue if you used potatoes from the grocery store. Best of luck with them next time! Nothing better than home grown potatoes.
ReplyDeleteWell you know... That bag had white grocery bought potatoes. The bag I cooked by mistake had seed potatoes.
ReplyDeleteI also used store red potatoes in some containers and they were small too. But I grew them to be small.
I thought the growth inhibitor was more to prevent sprouting but... maybe I have proof of what it does.
Next year I'll do an experiment. THANKS!
I had good luck following your instructions but I did use seed potatoes. Got 5 lbs from 4 seed taters
ReplyDelete5 pounds that is a good deal. I think the bag was a success, my choice of store potatoes wasn't. Congrats on your success!
ReplyDeleteNow I can have fun finding spuds online this winter.