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Last couple of years I've been growing potatoes in bins and done OK (although nowhere near as good as some people report on the forums and mostly smaller sizes than your typical supermarket purchase). These were planted using shop bought sprouting potatoes.
This year I thought I would just see what would happen if I left the tiny potatoes left over from the previous year in the bins throughout the winter. I was pleasantly surprised when they came up in the same way as the previous years at about the right time and it seemed to have worked. But having harvested my first bin there was really only ONE potato worth the effort and a handful of smaller ones.
Had the plants not come up at all I would have held my hands up and said bad idea, but seeing as the plants did grow as normal I'd like some advice why the crop might have failed. I was doing the topping up process of adding soil as the plants grew and while the base soil was last years I did add some tomato feed and the topping up (perhaps 2/3rds of the total soil used) was done with new (bottom of the price range) compost.
Any ideas?
This year I thought I would just see what would happen if I left the tiny potatoes left over from the previous year in the bins throughout the winter. I was pleasantly surprised when they came up in the same way as the previous years at about the right time and it seemed to have worked. But having harvested my first bin there was really only ONE potato worth the effort and a handful of smaller ones.
Had the plants not come up at all I would have held my hands up and said bad idea, but seeing as the plants did grow as normal I'd like some advice why the crop might have failed. I was doing the topping up process of adding soil as the plants grew and while the base soil was last years I did add some tomato feed and the topping up (perhaps 2/3rds of the total soil used) was done with new (bottom of the price range) compost.
Any ideas?
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