Growing Our Potatoes In 5 Gallon Buckets

As some of you may know I have a teeny weeny itsy bitsy back yard, so we are definitely limited on our garden space.  My beloved began researching different ways to garden with limited space and came up with a great way to grow our potatoes. From what we have read potatoes deplete your soil quickly so if we plant our potatoes in buckets, after harvest we can then either throw that soil out, or use it for flower pots etc.  Plus planting in buckets helps save our garden space for other yummy veggies:)

How To Grow Potatoes In Buckets

We are using 5 gallon buckets, that we had given to us by a friend that came from a restaurant.  The buckets where food grade.  You want to make sure the buckets you use never had any chemicals in them previously. 

~Drill holes in bottom of bucket

~Throw in about 1-2 inches of stones for drainage

~Cover the stones with some sort of screen so that you don't plug up your drainage

~Add about 1-2 inches of soil/compost material

~Then add your potato with about 2-3 eyes

~Use just enough soil to cover your potato

~Make sure your soil is moist, but not too wet

~It will take about 1-2 weeks for it to pop through the surface

~Once it pops through just cover it with about 1 inch of soil until it gets close to the top of the bucket

 I have heard that some people have got up to 15lbs of tomatoes from 1 - 5 gallon bucket, but our expectations are not that high:) 

We planted Yukon Golds, and Russet potatoes. And we have 10 - 5 gallon buckets and they seem to be doing great so far.. I'm really excited to see how they turn out. 

     This is the potatoes poking through:)

And now I'm going to leave you with a picture of Gracie from last summer with one of our huge cucumbers.

These cucumbers didn't taste very good until they got huge, I'm guessing we did some thing wrong:)

"That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil-this is the gift of God."
Ecclesiastes 3:13