In today's smaller gardens there isn't a lot of space to play with if you want to use the garden as a place for recreation or relaxation and growing some of your food.  If you have a small garden then growing your own potatoes seems to be a waste of land when the space used by potatoes in a "traditional " setting could be used for more profitable crops that cost more to buy than potatoes. After all if you think you can buy a 25 kg sack of spuds for about £5 these days so why grow your own?

The simple answer is taste, provenance, variety, food miles, organic and the list can go on.

It is simple to grow potatoes in any container that is more than 12" cubed so that is 12" x 12" x 12" or in new money 30cm x30cmx30cm.  I often grow my spuds in black sacks of compost and they turn out really well. Any container will do providing it measurements are greater than those mentioned above.

The best way is to get a suitable container and put a few drainage holes in the bottom. Put into the container a layer of compost about 3" / 75mm deep. Many books and articles will tell you to put at least 6" or 15 cm in the bottom but potatoes will only grow up and thus they will not produce tubers below the level of the potato sets you use so why waste compost?

Onto your layer of compost place 3 or 4 set potatoes that have been "chit ted".

Chiting is where you expose the seed potatoes to light in a warm or frost free environment and the seeds sprout from the eyes of the potatoes. These are the same ones you see as long white shoots of you leave potatoes in a bag without using them. The difference is that the white roots are sort of forced and as such not the best you can use. To chit a seed potatoes you just need to place the tuber in a tray or egg carton with the eyes pointing up and wait until they develop.

[picture coming soon]