Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

My Container Garden: The Season is Over

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This spring, frustrated by the lack of any good growing space in our yard, we decided to give a container garden a try.  We bought up a whole bunch of pots to put everything in, got some good potting soil, and planted away.  Once we were done, we planted a couple pots of tomatoes, a couple pots of cucumbers, a longish pot of green beans, a pot of green peppers, a longish pot of carrots, two pots of onions, and two large pots of potatoes.

Last weekend, with the low temperatures in the forecast dipping below the 32 degree mark, we decided it was a good time to pull up the root vegetables, and pick anything that was ripe.  Considering the few silly things we did, and the terribly hot summer we had, I think we did O.K.

Container Garden Harvest

In the picture, you can see some of what we pulled up last weekend. I wasn’t quick enough on the camera trigger to get pictures of the carrots or peppers before they got taken into the house. Also not pictured are any of the cucumbers, beans, or tomatoes we’ve harvested throughout the summer, or any of 10 or so potatoes that we pulled out from the bottom of the potato bag in August.

Overall, I’d have to say that I was slightly disappointed with the harvest.  None of the onions grew to very good size.  What cucumbers we did harvest were all seeds and no flesh.  The heat really played havoc on most of the plants in the containers.  There were several weeks where the plants really needed to be watered every night, but we were either gone, or didn’t get home in time to do it.  I also made the mistake of planting a few too many plants in some of the containers, and I think they got crowded which stunted their growth.

The quality of what we got, however, was pretty good.  Fresh potatoes taste nothing like what you get from the store, they’re so buttery and sweet.  The onions, while small, were very good as well.  My wife made a salsa with some of the tomatoes and onions, and it was very, very good.

I’ve already got a pretty good mental list of the things that I’ll be changing next year.

  • We get such a short growing season here, that I either need to start the seeds much earlier in the house, or just spend the money and buy greenhouse plants when it’s time to plant.
  • I’ll have to be careful to reduce the number of plants in the pots as well, to cut back on the crowding issue we had.
  • I’m also thinking about building a few planters attached to the deck so I don’t have to buy any more pots.  Of course, I could try and find some second hand pots as well.
  • The soil we use may have to change a bit as well.  The stuff we bought this year, while good potting soil, just didn’t seem to keep it’s consistency very well.  Part of that may have been the need for more watering.
  • I’ll be changing the mix of plants that I plant as well.  The cucumbers didn’t seem to take to containers all that well, so I might cut those in half.  I’d also like to add a few more tomato plants, and a few more varieties of peppers.  We only planted green peppers this year, but I’d like to try some jalapeno, and maybe another variety of hot pepper.

How did your garden turn out this year?  Do you plant in a garden or in containers?

 

Growing Potatoes in Containers

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As part of my foray into container gardening this year, I decided that it would be fun to try my hand at growing some potatoes.  I’d done a fair amount of reading, and it seemed like growing potatoes in containers was pretty workable.  I’d seen several examples of people growing them in old tires stacked 4 high, fencing towers stuffed with straw, and some much more elaborate wood sided towers that allowed for taking the bottom rung off and pulling potatoes out from under the plant.

The re-purposed container that we already had, potatoes already planted.

When it came time to plant my potatoes, I decided that for the first time around, I’d just use one of the larger containers that I already had laying around the yard.  I’d previously used it to try and grow some flowers in, and while those turned out fine, some produce would be even better.  I also found and picked up another container that I wanted to give a try with potatoes.  It’s a bag made specifically for growing potatoes in, called, wait for it, Potato Planter.  It’s kind of cool though.  It’s made out of the same material that those blue tarps are made out of, and is designed with a velcro flap near the bottom of the bag to allow for you to open the bag and pull some potatoes out of the bottom while letting the rest of the potatoes grow near the top.

So, armed with my containers and a couple of bags of topsoil, I set about planting some potatoes!

Steps for growing potatoes in containers:

  • Potato Planter Packaging © by thatedeguy
    Fill each container with about 6 inches of soil.
  • Cut your seed potatoes so that each piece has about 2-3 eyes on it.
  • Place your seed potatoes onto the soil.  (I’m sure there’s a scientific spacing you should observe, but I didn’t.  I placed them about 6 inches apart.)
  • Cover the seed potatoes with a couple of inches of soil and water thoroughly.
  • Water as needed.  (Remember that containers dry out faster than your garden will, so they need more frequent watering.)
  • When the plants are about 6 inches tall, add more soil until the soil is about 2 inches from the top of the plant.
  • Repeat until the container is full of soil.
  • Continue to water, and wait.
  • Potato Bag Started © by thatedeguy

    After the plants have flowered, and the plant itself starts to yellow and die off, give the potatoes about a week to two weeks to mature, then harvest them.  (This step and the ones following are purely from my research, and not from experience yet.  I could be way off!)

  • When you harvest the potatoes, set them out in a warm, dry place to dry.  This is supposed to allow the skins to harden up a bit for better storage.  (One downside here is that the second the potato gets to a harvested state, the natural sugars in the potato begin converting to starch.  I’ll be trying a few fresh from the ground and some that have been “hardened” and see how much of a difference there is.)
  • Repeat next year!

So far, I’ve gotten as far as planting, and adding soil to the potato containers.  I’ve got one more batch of soil to add to the containers to fill them up with soil, then it’s just a waiting game as the plants grow potatoes and I wait for harvest time.  This year is a bit of an experiment, as it’s our first year of dedicated container gardening, as well as the first time I’ve ever grown potatoes.  Rather than add too many variables to the mix, I just planted some seed potatoes that I got from our local grocery store.  If I recall, they were the Red Pontiac variety.

Next year, should this year be a success (and it’s looking like it will be), I would like to order some seed potatoes of different varieties.  In particular, some purple potatoes.  Mostly, just because I think they look cool!  I’d like to try a few of the heritage/organic varieties too, and see if there’s much of a difference.

Have any of you ever successfully grown potatoes in your gardens or in containers?  Got any hints or tips for me?  Suggestions for varieties to grow next year?