I am always on the watch for efficient and effective ways to grow food. I want to tell you about one of those methods in this post.
Potatoes are always good, but potatoes grown organically in nutritious soil are GREAT! If you are hesitant to dig up your yard to plant potatoes, or you have only a small yard and not much space, you can grow potatoes in a trash can, barrel or other type of bin.
This works particularly well for potatoes because the potato plant grows vertically and then puts out spuds every foot or so. In a large field, farmers will periodically "hill" the potato plants by raking soil to cover all but the very tops. After the plant grows a little taller, they will "hill" the potatoes again, thereby increasing the growing space vertically.
However, using a trash can to grow potatoes keeps the "hilling" in a tidy, confined space so that you could grow them on a balcony or walkway.
Here is what you need to get the job done.
You will need to purchase soil and fertilizer (or prefertilized soil) for the trash cans. Depending on how big the bins are, you can figure about two bags per trash can (2 cu. ft. bags). And here is the chief downside to trash can potatoes: you have to buy bagged dirt every year. Good soil costs about $8-12 per bag, so that can add up quickly. You do not want to reuse the same dirt for growing potatoes year after year because potato plants are highly susceptible to pests, which will become entrenched in the soil if you don't rotate the dirt out. However, if like me you have many different pots going, you can simply rotate the dirt from those other pots into the trash cans and move the dirt in the trash cans into the pots. You would just need to keep track of where your dirt has been.
