Hey my friends, I got a very good one for you today. Today I’m going to show you the ultimate method for growing potatoes. It can literally double or triple the yield you’re getting now. This method can be used anywhere. It doesn’t depend on the native soil different than the last video. That was the instant weed free garden. It’s a similar concept, but it’s very, very easy to anyone can do it anywhere. So check it out. I’m going to show you the technique first, and then I will come out discuss some specifics pros and cons. Towards the end of the video, I’ll give you the biggest tip of all that is going to just blow up your yield.
Step 1: Lay Out Weed Barrier and Build a Containment Frame
How to Grow Potatoes in Grow Bags for Maximum Yield
Okay, step one, it’s very useful to lay down the weed fabric and I’ll put a link in the description to this exact heavy duty time that I use. This will solve a lot of worries and issues for us. The next step is to create some kind of a barrier to contain the leaf mold or the soil that we’re going to use. Now here you can see I just busted apart a pallet I made little slips in the last six out of the bad is what’s keeping the wood in. It’s all just kind of containing it. All right, it’s really makeshift, but it works perfectly fine. It doesn’t have to get more complete than this. You see I use this same technique to build makeshift beds in other places and this is from last year. And there’s no nails involved. It’s just steaks are carved from the same palette. make do with what you got. It’s free, it’s cheap. It’s easy, it works.
Step 2: Add a Layer of Leaf Mold for Water Retention
Okay next step after we have the landscaping fabric down and the barrier created we want to fill area with three to four or five inches of leaf mold. This is very important. Okay, if you don’t have leaf mold, you can use soil you can even just use straight up leaves or grass clippings or whatever you have. But the idea is that we have to conserve that the leaf mold is going to hold a tremendous amount of water are in the dry parts of the season. So the roots are going to grow down through the holes in the bottom of this bag and into the leaf mold and that’s going to be the real saving grace when it gets hot and dry.
Step 3: Position Your Grow Bag in Its Permanent Location
Now the next step is one of the most important of all once everything is ready, you put the bag in its final resting place. Once you put a plant in the bag, it never gets moved. This is crucial because if you move the bag, you will fracture all the roots and it will be a disaster. So put the bag we’re never going to move or get jostled.
Step 4: Fill Grow Bag with Compost and Soil Mix
Now you want to fill the bag and third of the way with compost preferably just fresh, beautiful dark rich compost. It doesn’t matter if it’s completely finished, just mostly finished. Also here I use a mixture of old used potting soil, also some native soil also various other things but compost is the best mouth fill the bag a third of the way full with the compost and then begin to roll the top down. When you do this, you want to get it as tight as possible because we’re trying to form it it’ll actually form like a sturdy around the thing. Okay, so really, really get tight. Now listen up there must be drainage holes.
Step 5: Create Drainage Holes in the Grow Bag
So I like to take a long piece of rebar and pierce it through the soil and until I feel it punctured the back. You have to make sure that you puncture the bag with drainage holes. I put 10 of them in each of these bags. This is important because now the substrate drain but also because the potato tubers are gonna have downs through these leafmould and that’s gonna make them very drought. tolerant. Okay, now at this point, you could grow pretty much anything in these bags. Once the sides are tight and the holes have poked into it and it’s fun post. Pretty much anything we’ll throw in there. If you don’t have grow bags on hand, you can also grow potatoes in a cardboard box using the same basic principles.
Okay, it’s just it works best if it’s something that will grow big enough to shake out the bags because in the blazing sun the black plastic can get very hot. But for example the potatoes are gonna grow up and spill over in the summer you see to the point where you won’t even be able to see the bags. Oh sweet potatoes.
Root Crops That Can Be Planted With Method
We weren’t going to but you can plant anything in this swiss chard or beets or whatever you want. But for this we’re doing potatoes. So let’s go into the basement and get them here we are going to go into the basement and get the leftover fields from last year. Obviously they have really started to sprout they are ready to go in the ground now. So we are going to pick up this is a determinant variety and it’s an early reducer and very delicious. Not order more for more potatoes to eat. This is the pattern that we’re going to use. But here’s the tip. If you enjoy maximizing yields with advanced growing methods, applying the same precision to other vegetables like cucumbers can make a big difference in your harvest.
Now here is the secret of the masters. Okay.
Indeterminate vs Determinate Potatoes: Which Variety to Choose
And it is this potatoes, the indeterminate variety which is the vast majority of them. Okay, you hear a lot about determinate and indeterminate, but the vast majority are determined potatoes, okay? Which means that when you plant the potato, it is going to set roots and tubers to the side and maybe slightly up just slightly. It will never set tubers below the initial seed potato. Okay, so it’s going to set it all on one level. You plant the potato and it’s going to plant more tubers on the same level pretty much all right, as opposed to the few varieties of indeterminant potatoes that they will if they’re buried in enough soil, they will continue to produce a little bit of tubers up the vines. But these are ones that are really really long season 130 days and stuff like that. So for the most part on really come after me. Those are can be grown in the exact same way. The only difference being you would add more soil and roll the back up and then add more soil and roll it back up. But pretty much just don’t worry about anything you get Kennebec yukon gold, all that stuff is all determinant it’s all going to grow on the same level. Keep that in mind. If you want to go deeper on the soil-building side of this, check out why and how to hill up potato crops for a full breakdown of that technique.
How to Plant Potatoes at Two Levels to Maximise Yield
So here’s the tip potatoes in the bag at two different levels. Let me show you. Okay, so we’ll be planting four potatoes in each bag. Now we’re going to plant them on two different levels so that we can get a bag full of potatoes to do that. You’ll see on the backs that there is they come to two points where the back joins together. There’s two points on the back. Now at those two points, dig almost all the way to the bottom of the back so that you’re only two or three inches above the bottom plastic of the back. Put two potatoes at that level. And once those are very just a few inches above the bottom of the bag. Now go to the opposing side and plant the other two potatoes but only plant these maybe two inches deep. See they’re going to be on a whole different level than the other ones that are six to eight inches below these two. These ones are going to barely be buried at all just a little bit because they’re only a couple inches deep.
Adding Compost to Feed Potatoes All Season Long
Now here is the secret. Another secret go to your compost pile that has a tarp over it because that’s how you keep it and get the black gold. Nice, rich composted organic matter. And this is the key because potatoes are heavy feeders meaning they require a lot of nutrients. So compost is going to give you a perfect balance of vitamins, minerals and nutrients as well as micro organisms. So we get you a five gallon bucket of the good stuff with worms in it and all that it doesn’t matter if it’s not all that finished like this stuff. It’s not completely finished, but that’s fine. It’s going to break down and feed the potatoes all season long. Now you will very gingerly add the compost and the whole five gallon bucket to the back and you can roll the sides up or down as needed. But will gently put it all in there and that is all you will have to do.
Watering and Caring for Potatoes in Grow Bags
In about two weeks. You’ll see sprouts sprout up through the soil. Don’t worry that they’re buried 568 inches deep. The potatoes know exactly what to do. They will use the stored energy in the tour to power up through all of this no problem then it’s pretty simple. From there out you just water the plant make sure it gets a good watering at least once a week about what the drainage holes that won’t matter. You can’t really overwater so it’s all good. Just make sure that they stay moist.
Now, the real magic of this method is as you will see here I put three small red New Orleans in here last year. And because the potato is forced to consume only what’s in the bag, it supercharges it it doesn’t spread out roots into the surrounding clay or soil that is lackluster and nutrients. It only consumes the supercharged stuff. So from these three small potatoes last year, I got this 10 – 15 might have been even 20 pounds of potatoes back and that is an incredible return on investment, my friends. So this is the method that you want to be doing. And once your first harvest is done, don’t stop there — you can keep the momentum going by growing a second crop of potatoes starting in August to squeeze even more out of your season. Grow Your Own calories, potatoes are super nourishing, vitamins, minerals, the good calories, fiber, so let me delete the skins on all that stuff. All right. Any questions? You can put them in the comments. Please like the video game something we need to all be doing
From Editor:
Here’ are some determinate potato varieties
1. Potato ‘Kennebec’
2. Potato ‘Carlingford’
3. Potato ‘Purple Congo’
4. Potato ‘Pink Eye’
5. Potato ‘Red Pontiac’
6. Potato ‘Spunta’
More resources on Diggers Club website