Potatoes

Another gardening project, potatoes.  Instead of growing them in the ground, I decided to use buckets.  Lots of videos on YouTube for doing this, so I bought some 5 gallon food grade buckets from Firehouse Subs (who says the money for the pickle buckets goes to a charity for the Fire Service, which I hope is true).  The pickle smell was pretty awful.  We washed out the buckets while I waited for the seed potatoes I had ordered to arrive.  I ordered Yukon Gold because we like them.

When the potatoes arrived, they hadn't really sprouted much but some of them had a bit so I cut them up into pieces where the sprouting eyes were and left them to dry on a paper towel for a couple of days.

Next task was to drill holes in the bottom of the buckets for drainage.  I used a 1 inch spade bit to make the holes and then put the buckets on some bricks I acquired from my mother in law. 

Next I put in a few stones to stop the soil immediately falling though, and then a few inches of soil, and then put my potatoes in, careful to put the eyes that were sprouting so they were facing up.  I had enough to put 5 good ones in each bucket, and gave the rest to my mother in law who says she will try and grow them.  I covered them with some dirt and will now cross my fingers for a few weeks to see what happens.  Once the prospective plants are about 6 inches tall I will put more dirt in and keep going up the bucket.