In one of the threads here, I mentioned that I had grown potatoes in yard leaf bags, largely because our soil isn't deep enough for us to grow anything, particularly root vegetables, in the ground. I have done this a few years and it has always been very successful, as well as easy to harvest. I piled the bricks around it mostly to keep my cat from tearing the bags apart. The first year I did it, I didn't have any young cats who were prone to to that, and the bags themselves would hold up long enough to bring the potatoes into harvest time. Somewhere, I have photos of the pile of potatoes that I harvested from just one of these bags but I couldn't find them when I was looking through my iPhoto album yesterday. I'll post them when I come across them, but here's some of the plants from a couple of years ago. I grew others on the south side of my yard, and they did well too.
That looks like my kind gardening...easy! Don't the bags get wet and disintegrate? They look like paper?
Yeah, they are leaf bags, so they are made of a few thicknesses of paper, but paper. They are outside and it rains a lot in Maine, so they would get wet repeatedly, yet they'd hold up long enough to grow a crop of potatoes. About harvest times, they would begin to show some wear but not so much that they'd come apart. I'd wrap a couple of thicknesses of tape around them to keep them from collapsing in a rainstorm.
That's surprising but interesting. The problem here is that the ground is so hard that it's almost impossible to dig deep.
That's the problem I have. I have only a few inches of soil before I run into coal ash, so I have to grow everything above ground level.
One year when I was planting flowers all around a border, my ex had to go ahead of me with a drill to even start the holes.
That is a brilliant idea. I have horrible soil in my backyard and was wanting to find an easy way go deal with it. It looks as though you grew other veggies in the bag. Am I correct? Could any veggies be grown in these bags? How many pounds of soil did you need to put in each bag before you planted?
We don't eat potatos much anymore, but I think that method would also work great for growing tomatoes and other garden veggies. We have been using plastic containers, but the paper bag and the bricks would probably shelter the root from the heat of the sun much better than just the thin plastic containers can do. I have also read about using cardboard boxes for planting in; but I have not tried that either. It would not be deep enough for potatoes, but maybe fine for maters and cukes, and even beets could grow since they are not really deep in the ground.
I don't see why anything couldn't be grown in a paper bag but most wouldn't need bags quite so high, which are necessary because potatoes are root vegetables. However, potatoes have a longer growing season than most plants so if the bags are able to hold up through a long potato season, they should easily hold up for any other plants. I would think you could use regular paper grocery bags for other plants, but I might double bag them. The leaf and grass bags are already double or triple layered. I didn't pay attention to the amount of soil but it was mostly compost that we can get from our town for free. Another advantage to paper over plastic buckets (which I had also tried with potatoes) is that they provide for great drainage since the water will retain the dampness well, but excess water will simply seep through. I do poke a few small holes in the bottom, to be sure that I don't have standing water on the bottom. I haven't tried cardboard boxes but I don't see why they wouldn't work for other crops. I haven't had very good luck using plastic buckets or things like kitty litter containers, even with drain holes drilled in the bottom, I think because they tend to heat up too much on warm days.
Good to know, Ken. I hesitate to use anything plastic as I fear chemical leaching from the plastic as it heats up during the day. I would rather used paper bags and then recycle them through my compost. I think I might try your method this fall.
I've been growing potatoes in a 3 x 12 raised bed about one foot high and have had great success. I just dug this years crop yesterday and got a wheelbarrow full. @Ken Anderson, when planting in the bags do you start them deep and add soil as they grow as you would hill potatoes in a normal garden?
I filled it about ¾ of the way and started them there because I was concerned that they wouldn't get enough light on the bottom of such a high bag.
Interesting to me. I'm too long of tooth to grow anything but I do like the idea. Farming in a small but manageable way.. A family might survive in extremely hard times. Potatoes and tomatoes and green onions and other veggies.
Learned something here and I love potatoes too. Living in apt. there isn't much of gardens to go around for the water is free, but you kind of feel bad about using too much of it. So I've learned to recycle water to use for my aloe and broad leaf plantain growing in my tiny backyard on the first floor apt. This is so great growing potatoes in bags. Today there's the extra sturdy bags from Safeway and Walgreens they give when you buy things from their store if you did not bring your own bags and if you're buying a bigger amount they'll give these paper bags to carry your items bought. I love yukon gold potatoes, but not seen them in garden stores or any stores that sell seeds. I guess I'll go amazon.com window shopping for it if I ever get around to it. Thanks for the knowledge!
If you can buy the potatoes that you like at the grocery store, then just leave them in your cupboard or wherever you store your potatoes. They will soon get soft and start to sprout, and you will see the little sprouts poking out of the potato all over it. Cut the potato in sections, with at least one little white sprout in each section, and then plant those in dirt in the bags out in your back yard. They should grow and soon you will see the green tops (like in Ken's pictures), and after they blossom, then you should start finding some potatoes growing in the roots underneath the potato plant. Potatos are not grown from seeds, they are grown from old potatoes that have started to sprout.