VEGETABLES - Vegetable, Fruit and Herb Growing in Small Spaces - page 61

Surprisingly to many, the potato is a crop that does really well in large pots. The show grow-
ers wouldn't dream of growing their five perfect matched specimens in soil. They use bags
with special peat based compost mixes that have been shredded to avoid any twigs causing a
blemish on the skins.
I wouldn't suggest going to quite those lengths but it is well worth growing some potatoes
on the patio. You do need a large pot or you can buy the black plastic bags the show growers
use and plant one seed potato per 14 litre bag. If you have more room, then you can get larger
bags or even a patio potato barrel which takes five seed potatoes.
Potatoes are a hungry crop and they need plenty of water but they're very productive. Just
use an ordinary multipurpose compost and either add some specialist potato fertilizer or li-
quid feed with tomato fertilizer. See here .
Potato varieties are split into first early, second early and maincrop. The 'early' refers to
the time between planting and getting a crop, not that you should plant them earlier than
maincrop. Earlies are ready to start harvesting after 12 weeks but the maincrops that yield
more per tuber take 10 weeks longer and require more space so, for small space and container
growing, stick with the first early varieties, which are the quickest.
Fig. 20. Potato barrel.
There are literally hundreds of varieties available to the home grower, so you can grow
something you will never find in a shop and with a flavour you won't believe. My favourite
variety for pot growing would have to be Swift, but your taste may differ. Swift has an ad-
vantage that you can eat it as a small new potato but if left will grow on to a potato of baking
size. It's a good all-rounder, making nice roasties and chips as well as good for boiling and
mashing.