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I’ll admit it, I’ve never grown potatoes in the fall.  It’s always been a spring thing for me.  When some scary looking potatoes greeted me in the pantry the other day, however, that all changed.  Our Test Garden is chock-full of fall crops already, so there’s no room for potatoes, but where there’s a will, there’s a way.  The Way of the Pot.

(Cue Zen Buddhist musical interlude)

Potatoes are well-known for being suitable for growing in containers.  They can be grown in trash cans, burlap sacks, bags of compost, heck – even the compost bin itself!  So growing a few wayward potatoes in a pot should be no big deal – right?  Let’s give it a try:

Scary potatoes from the depths of the pantry

Sure, those potatoes might not be the best specimens for planting, but since there’s very little risk in trying, we sallied forth.  We selected a terra cotta pot about 12″ deep and 15″ in diameter.  Luckily we had some good quality organic potting soil on hand.

Master Nursery Gardener’s Gold at the ready

We put a shard of pottery in the bottom of the pot and filled it half way with potting soil.  Then we added a handful of organic vegetable fertilizer.

Action shot: mixing in the fertilizer

Then we placed the potatoes as close to 1 foot apart as possible.  In this case, it was more like 8″.

Finding a new home for the scary potatoes

Then we buried the potatoes with another 6″ of soil, watered well and stuck in a plant marker.

Instant potato factory

Now we wait.  We’ll post our progress as the season continues.

Have you grown potatoes in a container?  What did you use?  Have you grown fall potatoes?  How did they do? Share it with us here?