For the gardener old potatoes are fine, though best if they do not have long sprouts and are wizened.

The container needs to grow along with the plants, starting out at the bottom of a trash can will not allow enough light. Starting at the top of the trash can is pointless, so I'd pass on the trash can idea. Potatoes don't need extremely rich soil, just moderately fertile and a bit acidic. Most parts of the northeast that means native soil conditions will give reasonably good results.

Garden soil: not for use in containers ? What are they putting in that stuff?

As far as not using old potatoes; Potatoes are quite succeptible to disease especially in certain areas of the country. Using certified seed potatoes guarantees that the seed you put in the ground is disease free; you cannot say that about the potato at the bottom of your bin.

This is important if you are going to be planting potatoes in the same soil year after year, or if you are planting other plants in the same family.

As far as the container: I have seen where people plant them in straw, in plastic garbage bags filled with a mixture of leaves & dirt. The gargage container may be a little tall for them. They will need to spread up and out. Plus you will need to drill holes for drainage. You may want to do a little more research and see if you can find a better container that will fit your needs.

I never considered using a trash bag. This year I am going to try that.

"This is important if you are going to be planting potatoes in the same soil year after year, or if you are planting other plants in the same family."

Why is that? I planted potatoes more than 5 years ago in one spot. Even tho I try to dig them all up every year I still miss enough to have a big crop of volunteers each Spring. The plants are still lush and the potatoes, tho not large, are good despite neglect.

What are they doing to that area?

growing from seed as such is never heard of over here and if potato's do give viable seed no one sells it. much quicker to grow using seed potato's (the name maybe a bit of a misnomer?) as they are nothing more than a potato that is let go to sprouting or chitting whatever.

for a long time i beieved that we should always buy certified seed potatos, but have found over the years that there is no problem using potatos that are budding in the fridge or pantry, these often my preffered because they are there and chitted ready for planting at planting time, we can't realy get certified ones early enough to chit them long enough before planting time, so there is always a chance that some may never sprout.

potato's come under the soil improvers tag, so while they are growing they are doing that task, of taking toxins out of the soil whatever? we end up with volunteers not where we had the potato's growing (for the reason why? see our instant potato patch pic's), but when we harvest then we rake up all that mulch they grew in and put it on the garden, then we get volunteers from the very little potato's we don't harvest.

these volunteers come up in the wrong season (summer) so they often don't do well in the summer heat, we grow ours from autumn through winter and harvest late spring early summer.

len

Here is a link that might be useful: lens garden page

Len, I suspect the OP is referring to seed tubers, not TPS. Use of TPS is quite rare in the US and Canada also.

I am sure the potato farmer who makes a living on growing and selling potatoes, is careful not to have infected farm. So the chances are very high that store bough potatoes are safe to plant.

Store bought potatoe have one problem and that is, most of them are treated with something to inhibit sprouting too fast. But this problem has two solutions:

1- Try to green them, by placing them in single layer where it is about room temperature and they get some light. Most of them will sprout. This method has an added advantage and that is, when planted they will grow sooner.

2- Buy organic potatoes. You can be sure that they are not treated with any chemical.

I read in Idaho gardening forum that seed potatoes over there sell for about 60 cents a pond. This is reasonable.
If I had such an option I would plant certified seed potatoes as well. But I WILL NOT PAY A LOT FOR SEED POTATOES(Grin).
My potatoes are in full bloom now. I bought the seeds from supermarket. I have about 4 or 5 different kinds: White(2), yellow, red, purple.

the potatoes that i have are store bought and have these big white things coming out of them i think they look like roots if i plant these i should get potatoes right

Try this if you are short on space.

Joel

Here is a link that might be useful: Grow 100 lbs of Potatoes in 4 sq. ft.

However, 10 lbs is a much more likely target from 4 sq ft, and that would be a good harvest.

My understanding of the virus thing with potatoes is that potatoes can harbour several viruses and if the virus load is not heavy, or the plant becomes infected as an adult plant, it may grow OK but yield and/or vigour may well be decreased.

So a farmer may have plants carrying viruses, but not know it, and anyway it's impossible to be *sure* they don't if they're grown in the open - virus vectors are usually sucking insects, which are mostly tiny and kind of hard to keep away.

The thing is, the virus is present in the tubers that an infected plant produces, and when the tuber grows, the subsequent plant is infected, only this one is affected from the very beginning of it's growth, so the viral load is likely to be a lot higher. And so it's likely to be more badly affected than its parent plant.

That said, lots of people say they use store-bought potatoes with no problems. I suppose it's a bit of a gamble but I can't say I've heard any horror stories. Maybe people just don't want to admit it all went bad, who knows? Also, store bought potatoes are likely to be the progeny of plants from certified seed potatoes, because that's what commercial growers use, so there's only been one generation for virus accumulation.

The other thing to watch out for with store potatoes, so I'm told, is to chit them before you plant them, because apparently potatoes have a period of dormancy. If your spuds are already sprouting, you know they're ready to go. If not, and you don't know how long they've been in storage, your crop may take longer than expected!

I've yet to encounter a store-bought tuber that hasn't sprouted by springtime. I think the oft-told "sprout-inhibitor" spray business is a myth.

And I agree, ausbach, store-bought tubers are never more than one generation away from certified seed, so the risk for the small-scale gardener is very small. Good point.

"the potatoes that i have are store bought and have these "big white things coming out of them i think they look like roots if i plant these i should get potatoes right"

memysel9876

Yes. They are called sprouts, that when planted become stems and come out of ground. To make those sprouts healthy
keep the potatoes you want to plant where they get light. This way they will turn greenish. The potatoes as whole will also become greenish. When the sprouts are about 0.5 inch,
plant them.Be careful not to break those shoots while handling. If the potatoes are big and have more than 5 eyes(where shoot come out) cut them into two pieces such that each pice ha a minimum of two eyes/sprouts. Leave them in the open to heal the cuts, for a day before planting. Plant two seeds per hill, about 3-4 inches(that is the seeds in each hole) and space the hills about 18 inches.
BACK TO SPROUTINGS:
However, if the sprouts on your potatoes already are longer than an inch and they are white(very pale yellow), they are not quite suitable for planting.Get them off. Your potatoes will grow new one.

potatoes are very easy to grow. Even if you peel them thick and plant the peelings, they will grow, provided the peel has eye(s). The ambrio is right by the eyes. The rest of inner part of potato is store of energy and food for the ambria.

To answer your MG soil question. The reason that the particular bag you are referring to is not recommended is because of soil compaction when wet in a container. MG makes potting soil less mixtures (more expensive though). Check out the container forum for more info. I am using Al's mix with great success. I did use regular gardening soil and growing my potatoes in burlap bags. Regular garden soil can be used and you have to add leaves/hay etc. I have seen people use trash cans and when they plants are small they line the inside with foil to attract and reflect the sun deep into the trash can. The foil is then removed as the plant grows taller. Best wishes.

deeproots
I never considered using a trash bag. This year I am going to try that.

I tried it last year and found it to be very unsatisfactory. The problem is that the sides are not stable and if it rains, the soil can gradually shift from on-center over to one side so the plastic is basically shorter on one side than the other. It was difficult to unroll the folded-down bag when adding mulch to the height. I swore I'd never do it again, though maybe it works better for others!

It might have worked better for me if I had had some kind of outside support for the trash bags that the soil inside could "lean" on if so inclined.

Anyway, just some things to think about.

I am growing potatoes in a big wooden planter. I have a combo of seed tubers and store bought ones. The 'seed' potatoes are Yukon Gold while the store bought ones are Rusets. My seed potatoes took forever to chit like one month in a south facing window sill. But the wife bought a bag of Rusets at the same time and they chitted in the bag by themselves no problem. I am sure the store bought ones emerged first as they had more developed sprouts. Next year I'll probally do the same thing and maybe I will just try store bought only as the seed ones were expensive and sprouted much slower. The place where I bought my seed potatoes will probally have some at season's end and I know the lady runs the garden department so I will see if I gan get a discount. I really want to try the red and purple/blue ones.

Larrick

thanks pnbrown,

that would make more sense, if let go to flower they will produce seed pods but are the seeds inside viable? if flowering occurs which is seldom i usually pinch the flower heads off so the plant puts all its energy into producing tubers.

memyself, if you have budding 'taters in the pantry i would suggest plant them if you are that way inclined.

with store bought spuds that have been treated they simply won't bud i tried and all they did was rot. most 'taters we buy in our stores over here well the shops we shop in seemingly sell untreated potato's as nearly all will bud in storage, some even showing early signs on the shop shelf.

for me i have never had to have the potato go green to bud, some of the 'tater's we have in this year are from our last crop that budded and from store bough stock that budded as well the most from specifically bought certified seed potato's, they cost $2.50 AUD per kilogram and the way we grow them each kilo' returns 5 or 6 kilograms so that is pretty good for the effort we don't put in.

happy 'tater growing

len