How to grow potatoes in a bucket on the balcony?
Experienced gardeners are unlikely to take seriously the idea of growing potatoes in a bucket. This method of planting can be considered, rather, as a curious experiment, or it can be used to grow tubers on the balcony of a city apartment. Planting potatoes in a bucket will not require special labor and material costs. You can always try to do this and evaluate the feasibility of this method of obtaining a potato crop for yourself.
Preparation of tubers and soil
The number of tubers for planting depends on how many buckets will be used for growing potatoes.
If you plan to land on the balcony, 3-4 containers are enough.
Some resourceful gardeners grow vegetables in this way in a small suburban area, where the lack of space interferes with planting the crop using the traditional method. In this case, the number of buckets used can be up to 10 or even more. You can arrange them in any convenient place, well lit by the sun.
Tubers are preliminarily laid out for vernalization. The potatoes should be spread out in the light and kept at a temperature of + 12-15 ° C for a month or a little longer, until sprouts appear. Before planting, for the purpose of disinfection, the tubers are powdered with wood ash.
To compile the soil take:
- 2 parts compost;
- 1 piece of garden land;
- 1.5 cups of wood ash (per bucket).
At first, the buckets will be slightly more than half full of soil. Later, you will need to top up the soil.
Landing features
This method of planting potatoes has an important feature. The soil is not covered all at once, but in stages.
Several drainage holes must be made at the bottom of each bucket, so it is more convenient to use plastic containers.
If it is not possible to put the buckets into the greenhouse, then planting is carried out in the early days of May. This can be done earlier, around mid-April, provided that it is laid as a lower layer of undecomposed organic matter (leaves, grass, straw). In the process of decomposition, the waste will generate heat and thereby warm the plant roots.
- At the bottom of each bucket, you need to pour soil in a layer of about 15 cm, then put 1-2 tubers and sprinkle with the same amount of earth.
- After planting, the buckets are placed between the beds, along the wall of the house, on the balcony. The main thing is that they are illuminated by the sun, otherwise the harvest will be poor. Similarly, potatoes are grown in barrels, wooden boxes, bags.
- After the sprouts emerging from the ground reach a height of 10–12 cm, soil is poured into the container again, leaving only the tops of the leaves on the surface. From an agrotechnical point of view, this procedure is similar to hilling. The stems sprinkled with earth build up new stolons on which tubers will develop.
- As the shoots grow back, after 1.5–2 weeks, add the earth again. The soil level is now almost level with the edge of the bucket.
Leaving, harvesting
Watering potatoes during container planting, depending on the weather. The topsoil should dry out slightly between waterings. A large amount of fertilizer is not required with this growing method. It will be enough to sprinkle twice with an infusion of wood ash (1 tablespoon of ash per liter of hot water, leave for 2-3 days).
15–20 days after flowering, you can pick the first tubers from the ground. They will already be quite large. Finally, the crop is harvested after the tops turn yellow. The container is simply overturned and the potatoes are taken out. On the balcony, this can be done by laying an oilcloth beforehand. As a result, 2–2.5 kilograms of organic vegetables are collected from each bucket.
Of course, the harvest is small, but little effort will be spent. But there will be an opportunity to serve delicious, self-grown potatoes to the table, the cultivation of which did not use any chemicals. Children can be involved in such an experiment by entrusting them with simple watering of plants in buckets.
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