pop up potatoes

[greendean]

i wanted to start some seed potatoes in containers and was toying with those patio planter bags but i saw these in poundland and though they would be ideal.

they are supposed to be rubbish bags but they are made of similar material to patio planters and they just needed some drainage holes cutting. i followed tattiemans suggestions from another thread and planted three chitted potatoes into the bottom 4" of compost they covered over potatoes and gently firmed down.

i was quite pleased and will hopefully getting some nice salad spuds when the weather turns sunny

[Victoria26]

I did mine in them last year but they suffered terrible blight so I incinerated them on bonfire night! Lol.

[kevinb]

where did you get these and how much

[greendean]

i got them from poundland or was it poundworld. same thing really and they were £1.00 each.

[amandaandherveg]

I used these last year GD but like Victoria some of mine got blight (but then so did all the gardens around me). I just stabbed them with a fork for drainage.

I also grew some strawbs in them by planting some on the top and cut sections in the sides.

[bazzaboy]

They look ideal, Greendean... What I don't understand about patio potato bags (both these and the commercial ones) is that they seem to be semi-translucent - is it only white light that causes potatoes to green? b

[tattieman]

Nice job with the sacks. Bazzaboy as far as I know the bags let the light through only when the bag is empty to help the shoots grow but once the soil is in the light is shut out and the potatoes are safe.

[Noodles]

That is a bargain. I saw some of the specially marked potato ones (which look identical to your photo) on sale in the garden centre yesterday, £14.95 for 3!

[Pumpkin Becki]

I bought a pack of 5 'rubble' type sacks (White woven plastic stuff) from Homebase for £4.99 last month with the same idea in mind. I haven't got a very large lottie, and potatoes take up such a lot of space for such a long time. I also thought they might produce 'cleaner' potatoes for showing, rather than ground grown ones. We shall see...

[HayleyB]

Wow GD that's a good buy, I'm gonna have to find me a poundland or whatever they're called

[broadway]

Got 5 today, cheers GD

[ardroil]

i think il have to pop into my poundland tomorrow, they look perfect and you cant go wrong with that price.

[maxine]

Thank you for this i better go have a look these would be idea for my mum on her patio

[Alice]

I can't see any reason why your potatoes wouldn't do well in there Greendean. Looks like a bargain.
I grow in buckets which do well. Your containers are bigger than buckets. We had this discussion before, but I tried bigger containers before and found that containers twice the size didn't produce twice as many potatoes. I think I might go back to a trial on that. Maybe there is an optimal size.
Keep notes Greendean. We could be on to something here. Lets see how it goes.

[sclarke624]

I have grown my first and second earlies in these for three years and they are absolutely fine. I have a tag on the bottom of mine so when I first plant them I tie string onto these tags to make the bag atsy smaller and gradually raise the bag sides by loosening the string as tats grow. yours probably has tags as well so when folded up and put away it stays folded. I put four tats in mine and get a good yield, would put three in if had more bins. I didn't actually make any extra holes in mine. I have grown Charlotte and rocket in them.