Barrel Potatoes

While driving back from a conference, the conversation turned to urban agriculture. My friend suggested I try growing barrel potatoes. That is, potatoes grown in a barrel. Luckily, soon after moving in to my house a year ago, the City slapped a warning sign on my seldom-used garbage can. It has been sitting inside my fence ever since with nothing to do. So, I decided I would try and grow potatoes in it.

I drilled some holes in the bottom and cleaned it out. Now it was ready for a little soil at the bottom and a little bone meal. I bought some Yukon Gold seedling potatoes and placed some in my barrel. I then covered with soil, watered, and waited.

I’m now twenty days into growing potatoes and I have a number of plants coming up. The only hard part is that I need to keep the soil just under the leaves of the plants but they’re growing at different rates. One is about 25 cm tall while I just noticed a new one coming out today.

It looks hopeful that I’ll have some potatoes in the Autumn as long as I don’t keep the soil too wet and my potatoes get mouldy.