Well I'll share with you what I went through myself. I also grew in grow bags. 45 gal grow bags actually! I harvested the Purple Majesty yesterday and got a very small yield. The plants are going to start looking sickly at this point, because they are close to dying off. Usually the matured potatoes are ready for harvest after the plants have all flopped over and died.

Here are the issues I believe I encountered. 1. I used the Dr. Earth potting mix for just about the whole thing. Talk about expensive potatoes! I will be making my own mix in the future. I believe their potting mix was too rich in nitrogen, because I had very lush top growth on my potatoes, but not many spuds to show for it. 2. Potatoes need a good helping of phosphorus, because that's what contributes to sizeable taters. 3. Potatoes love acidic soil. I didn't believe what I was reading when I saw the optimal range at 4.8-5.5!! Now typically a nice peat moss based soil would be acidic, but most companies will add lime to counteract that acidity. 4. They need consistent moisture, so the tubers will form properly and not be distorted.

I believe one or all of these contributed to my small harvest. More so I think it was the nitrogen.

What kind of potting mix did you use?

Chris, I used a combo of compost and perlite (to help with drainage) and straw and a little bit of leftover potting soil I had lying around. I planted the seed potatoes in compost/soil/perlite, then hilled with compost and straw, hilled again with compost and straw. Each time I added Dr Earth 4-6-3 fertilizer. I watered often in the beginning, then realized the mix was staying pretty wet so I changed to every few days.

i grew potatoes in grow bags last year with poor results. i think the bags heat up too much. potatoes are a cool weather crop.

I did (bottom to top): compost/perlite/potting soil/fertilizer, seed potatoes, compost/fertilizer, straw, compost/fertilizer, straw. So basically layers, yes. I've heard of people growing potatoes in straw towers so I figured adding straw was a good way to fill space and lighten the mix without taking away any nutrients.

My grow bags have flaps in the middle and I did stick my hand in there and feel around for anything in the middle of the bag. So far have not discovered anything, but I didn't want to poke around too much and damage the plants/roots.

Right now my best guess is the heat. Short of insulating the outside of containers with something (blankets? bubble wrap?), I can't really control that. Just wondering if I should wait and see if anything grows in the next weeks.

Definitely hold off until the plant actually dies. That's what I'll be doing.

Given the appearance of the plants - generally healthy - it may be too soon to expect much in the way of tuber development. It isn't even 90 days yet and the wierd spring weather has delayed many crops in parts of the country.

Plus I wouldn't expect to find them near the top either but more like 2/3 of the way down in the bag. I sure wouldn't give up on them until the tops die off. You may be surprised.

Dave

I think I should start a blog called "Impatient Gardener." Thanks for all the feedback and encouragement!

I grow in bags also. I have harvested my Red Norland with disappointing results but I'm waiting on Kennebec. It will be interesting to see how we all do in the end.

Meant to follow up on this. This is my Yukon Gold harvest in a 45 gal grow bag. Still rather poor, but better than Purple Majesty. This is from 5 plants and the largest was 7.6oz. Total yield was about 3.5lbs. I grew 3 plants in ground and got about the same yield, so ground is definitely better, as expected. Still have 15 gal bag with Kennebecs in them.

Nice, Chris! I still haven't harvested mine. The vines are still pretty green (although more brown spots are developing) so I have left them alone. Thinking of harvesting one bag at the end of the month though to see if anything is there. I've been watering every few days or when I think of it. Don't want whatever is in there (if anything) to rot with too much watering.

Thanks! Not sure what kinda heat you're getting there, but here its been low 90's lately, so anything in a pot needs to be watered frequently. My 5 gal pots are being watered morning and night and 15 gal pots once every 2 days. This is the most watering I've done all season because the frequent rain was doing the job. More rain than I would've liked.

The Adirondack Blue should be very close, but idk about the Austrian Crescent. My Yukon Gold plants were looking pretty ugly when I harvested, but they hadn't completely died yet.

Hope everything does well!

Finally the leaves are turning yellow in one of my containers. The plants are watered enough, I think - it's been raining on and off here and I water when there's a dry spell. This is definitely a learning experience for me!

It's definitely a fun experiment! Can't wait to see your harvest!

I have three grow bags and harvested from two as the plants started to die off. Maybe got about 5 lbs worth? like others I also mainly found them on the lower half or third of the bag not all the way to the top as these bags are advertised to have.

Maybe they didn’t get enough water as it has been dry for the past two months - I need to add an extension to my existing automatic watering system to water these growbags. The third growbag potatos plants are still green and growing so I’m watching that they don’t dry out on me. I also planted some of the smallest spuds back into the two empty bags for a fall/early winter crop.

I harvested one of my containers, where I'd planted both Adirondack Blue and Austrian Crescent. Got about 40 spuds! I'm considering this a success. I replanted a few of the smaller ACs to see if I get anything for fall. My other two containers I'm leaving alone for a while, the vines are starting to die on those.

Nice harvest Laura!! I grew the Austrian Crescent as well for the first time this year. We really like them roasted.

I'm going to try some fall potatoes as well for the first time. My understanding is that they need to go thru a period of time to break dormancy before they will sprout. I have heard putting them in a warm area with high humidity will speed them up as well as putting them in the fridge for a few weeks. I harvested mine in June and had them in in my warm garage at first and then put them in the fridge for 2 weeks. I just took them out on Saturday and plan to plant them in a raised bed next weekend.

That being said, I have had many tubers that were missed during harvest end up sprouting in August or September among my fall carrots.

I plant in a garden in rows. My experience is that some years potatoes tend to be "all tops, no bottoms," the old timers used to say was due to not planting in the right "sign." Personally, I think too much Nitrogen is usually the culprit and don't fertilize the potato rows, relying on what's residual from previous years. I rotate things around the garden, so that seems to work OK. I did once plant potatoes in a "container." Had four old tires that I hadn't hauled off and decided to stack them up, fill with dirt and plant potatoes, worked well, come harvest, just start pulling off tires until the potatoes appeared. This was down in the garden, so no problem disposing of the soil.

Given my lack of knowledge of container gardening, curious about potatoes in containers. My experience is that the potatoes appear above the seed potato you've planted 2-3" deep, hence the need for hilling. Reading above, the potatoes in containers are "2/3 of the way down" which is very different from a garden. One of my childhood memories was when the green beans were ready to pick, we could also scratch around the base of the potaoes and rob some small ones. These went into a pot with the beans, add fried chicken, cornbread and watermelon and that was 4th of July on the farm. :-)