I LOVE LOVE LOVE potatoes. I am pretty sure I am like Forest Gump listing all the possible things I could do with the humble potato. I remember grade 3 our teacher taught us how to grow a potato. We planted our thin slice with a eye or two in an oversized pot and left them in the sun for the janitor to water. In June she sent them all home with us. I was proud to show my parents and it sat in the kitchen window. By September it had died and I was sad. I threw out the entire plant. I didn’t yet understand that you had to dig out the potatoes. Yes , I am a slow learner.

Since then I have learned to not only grow your potatoes but dig them out. If I can do that there is no reason anyone cannot grow a potato. The most common complaint I hear is – I simply don’t have space to grow potatoes. Wrong! I am going to teach you how to grow a ton of potatoes in just 1 foot of lawn space, using a garbage can!

• According to Garderner’s Path.com here are the 11 top home grown potatoes
• Daisy Gold traditional masher
• Kennebec – high yielding sturdy spud bread for salads stews etc
• Red Gold – white fleshed potato with red eyes – nutty flavour
• Red Pontiac (I have grown this one – a Tradtional red )
• Rio Grande (tradtional russet or baking)
• Magic Molly Purple- a purple fingerling potato – great on BBQ
• Masquerade- two tone skin – and only takes 63 days to grow
• Princess Laratte ( lovely French potato – long growing time
• Purple Majesty (large round purple potato)
• Peanut Fingerling ( I am testing out this one this year)
• Yukon Gold ( I have grown in the past with success)

Once you have your seed potato – you need to prep your garbage can. Drill lots of holes for drainage and air flow, not only in base but I like to drill holes up the sides as well for good air flow.

I add a thin layer of pea gravel to base of can to prevent the holes from getting clogged and increase drainage.

Now planting time – add a few inches of rich loose soil. Place your seed potato eyes up into dirt. For a garbage can sized container I place 3 or 4 med sized potatoes. (Or 1 seed potato for every 10 lts of your container) Cover with a few more inches. Place in full sun water and wait. Once the leaves reach 6 inches tall add 4 inches of dirt to cover most of the stock. – this will encourage the plant to produce more roots and tubers.

Once you reach the top, continue to water and let grow – it will flower, after flowering do not over water – this is when tubers form and will rot if in standing water too long – once plant dies back you can harvest- that is late summer / fall here –

Here is a video by “ Happy Money Saver” to help show you when and how to harvest you bin. Just tip over the can and viola ! Tons of potatoes.