Growing Potatoes in Tubs – Spring Summer 2024

Hi there, another trial of growing potatoes in 2 tubs. We decided to use a variety called ‘Casablanca’ a first early, and bought a bag of tubers 16 tubers or 1.5Kg in February. We had to chit them, ie make them produce small shoots. They were placed in daylight in an egg box. After a few weeks they started shooting. Some of the tubers were big so we cut them in half. Each half having shoots. The cut surface was treated with sulphur as a fungicide to stop any rot, and left with the others for another month. One cut half actually did rot.

But we got 22 chitted tubers in total.

Chitted Tubers
Chitted Tubers

When the frosts had past (end April) we planted out 4 tubers in a tub (shoots upwards), that had got a 10cm layer of compost in the bottom. Planted at 12 o’clock and 3 and 6 and 9 o’clock. Another 10 cm layer of compost on top, with a handfull of Triple 14 fertilizer NPK 14:14:14 pellets. Tub was then topped up with more compost. It was left on our drive and watered when necessary. This meant ever day from when the shoots appeared. We did have 2 nights of a slight frost, so we had to cover over the night).

End of May
End of May

Nice green and short halums, an indication that just about the right amount of Nitrogen was added to the compost at planting time. At the end of May we changed fertilizer and added a handfull of 8:24:24+5%SO3 ( NPK 8:24:24 and 5% Sulphur) for tuber growth.

We harvested this first tub at the end of June (60 days after planting). I know it was a bit early for blight, but they looked squeaky clean, with no slug damage.

Harvesting End of June
Harvesting End of June

So we originally purchased 22 tubers for 1.4kg (2 had rotted), and this tub we got 1.6kg of potatoes from 4 tubers. So if we continue with the same ratio we would harvest 8.8Kg. This is a very sizeable amount of fresh unblemished ‘Casablanca’ potatoes.

More importantly what was the taste – Enough for 2 adults were cooked in a microwave on high for 6 mins. We did try our normal 10mins for our usual Charlotte variety, but they ended up being over cooked. Trial and error we found 6 mins was more ideal. These were very nice and smooth with white flesh, all being of similar egg size.

We still have a duplicate tub that we will harvest late July (approx 90 days from planting) as there were a few small pea sized potatoes. We will give this tub another feed of 8:24:24+5%SO3 ( NPK 8:24:24 and 5% Sulphur) for tuber growth.