Grow Potatoes in Straw

Yesterday was St. Patrick’s Day. Here in Kansas that means it’s the official “plant your potatoes” day! Well it’s been pretty rainy here and despite my best efforts to rototill the ground is just too wet still. I was determined to get potatoes planted so I started searching out alternative methods of growing potatoes. 

We’ve got lots of buckets around here and Hanna and I had just picked up a nice blue bucket to plant something in. We decided on potatoes. However, instead of planting them the regular way by mounding the dirt over the plant I did a little research and we decided we’d plant potatoes in straw. (Hubby grabbed a large hay bale that fell off a truck and broke open off the road a while back so we have plenty of straw) Many farmers have may have rotten hay bales on their property you could check with them to see if they have any. You could also check with the vendors at your local farmer’s market about where to get hay/straw for this process.

This process starts off with some soil. I went cheap at the Walmart and bought the potting soil mud you see in the above picture. Big mistake. Luckily I still had some leftover compost in bags from last year. A little compost is always a good thing anyway.

In the bottom of your bucket (or whatever type pot you’re planting in) add an inch or two of your potting medium. Make SURE there are holes in the bottom of your bucket before you do this (ahem) because it’s really a pain to take it all out and put holes in the bottom after you’ve started.

When planting potatoes you really should use seed potatoes from the garden center. The potatoes you get at the grocery store usually have sprouting inhibitors on them (although it doesn’t seem to matter too much in my cabinet lol), but for your best chances use real “seed” potatoes.

When preparing your potatoes for planting there are a couple things to keep in mind. You want at least one “eye” (sprouting area) on each piece of the potato you’re going to plant. If you have fairly big seed potatoes you can cut them into pieces (making sure they each have an eye on them). If you cut your potatoes it’s recommended you allow them to sit out overnight to harden up. This will help decrease the chances of your potatoes rotting while in the ground. (in favor of full disclosure ~ I always forget this part and have never let them sit over night ~ I’m just saying)

Now that you have some potting medium in your pot go ahead and put the pieces of your seed potato in the bucket and then cover them with potting medium. We used an 18 gallon pot and I added 5 small pieces of seed potato. I think it may be too many, but I had 6 pounds of potatoes and was feeling a little frustrated.

Where does the straw come in?

As your potatoes start to sprout and come above the dirt you will cover them with a nice layer of straw. This will encourage more potato growth along the stem of the plant. As the plants grow through and above the first layer of straw apply another layer. Keep doing this until you reach the top of your planter. How many times you can do this process will depend on the size of your bucket. How many potatoes you get from your plant will also depend on the size of your bucket.

I had gathered another galvanized bucket we had laying around so I could do 2 buckets of potatoes. This bucket was even a little smaller than the first and I only put 3 potatoes in it. I was sitting on the porch swing looking at the almost full bag and an unopened bag of seed potatoes feeling a little bummed.

It was then that I looked across our driveway and spied an old abandoned plastic swimming pool. (It had blown across the yard and got stuck under the trees where I left it so it wouldn’t blow across the field.) Anyway, Hubby whacked it with the weedwacker so it was a bust for swimming, BUT… a perfect place to plant more potatoes!!

I pulled it across the driveway and cleared out a spot from the “flower bed” that has been wildly neglected in the last couple years and put it in.  Our chickens happened to think I was building them a little scratching pool (not) and were very excited to jump in and dig around. I found an old tomato cage and spread it out as flat as I could and used it to cover the new potato pool.

I’m really excited to see how the potato pool comes out, and a little worried about how I’m going to keep the chickens out of the pots growing around the house. We’ve got fencing in mind already for the big garden, but I never manage to completely garden within the lines!