You can grow potatoes very easily even without a garden
Growing potatoes might seem like a difficult thing, but in reality, it’s a lot easier than you think. It’s especially easy when you follow a couple of handy steps: this way you can even grow potatoes without an actual garden!
No garden, no problem.
Seed potatoes
If you don’t have a piece of land or a vegetable garden available to you, you can still very easily grow potatoes. The first thing you need for this is a large pot or container, preferably one with a volume of 12 to 15 litres. You grow the potatoes by placing potatoes with chits on them in potting soil. These potatoes you put into the soil are called seed potatoes. They come in different sizes, but the most used size is 28-35 millimetres. You can also get early, mid and late season potatoes.
Pre-sprouting
Unlike the other types of potato, early potatoes have a short growing period (10 weeks to 3 months). This type of potato is very suitable for growing in a pot. Before you plant the seed potatoes, get busy with pre-sprouting them. You do this by placing them in a bright spot with a temperature between 9 and 12 degrees for three weeks. The seed potatoes will then sprout chits. As soon as these chits are two to three centimetres long, the seed potatoes are ready to be planted.
Steps
- Fill the pot with soil, preferably a kind of soil that is rich in compost. Make sure you have 15 centimetres worth of space left.
- Plant the seed potatoes about 5 centimetres deep with the chits facing upwards. Add potassium and compost to the soil to enrich it. You’ve got room for about five potatoes in a large pot.
- Keep the soil moist, but not too wet. Water the plants every two or three days.
- When the plants have grown to a height of about 10 centimetres, it’s time to add some soil. Cover the plants with soil until only the top leaves are visible.
- Repeat step four when the plants have grown another 10 centimetres.
- When the potatoes have grown big enough, you can harvest them!
Read more: This is Jamie Oliver’s secret trick for perfect crispy potatoes!
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