We Grew Potatoes 7 Different Ways, Here's What Happened 🥔

SEVEN potato planting techniques tested: from buckets to trenches, see which method yielded the best results. Join me as we journey through the 3-week, 5-week, and 7-week updates, the grand harvest, and the final tally! 🥔

• Five-Gallon Bucket
• Grow Bag
• Traditional Trench
• 12-Inch Deep Planting
• 6-Inch Deep Planting
• Cut Potato in Half
• Ruth Stout Method

IN THIS VIDEO

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TIMESTAMPS
00:00 - Intro & Experiment Overview
01:44 - 3 Week Update
04:02 - 5 Week Update
04:59 - 7 Week Update
06:52 - Harvest Day
11:16 - Counting, Weighing & Conclusion

DISCLAIMER

[epicgardening]

We'll do this grow again guys! In a much more Epic fashion. Read all the comments and AGREE. Comment on this if you'd like to suggest an improvement for next time. Not my best showing but still wanted to publish the results! - Kevin

[ashleyyancey]

There was a second issue with your bucket potato beside the lack of drainage holes. That plant needed more dirt. That's a tall bucket, so putting it so deep in the bucket like you did prevents it from getting adequate light while its young, stunting its growth and potential potato production.

If you'd like to try the bucket potato again this is what I've tried and recommend; add drainage holes, then fill the bucket most of the way with dirt. Plant the potato 4-6 inches down and mulch the top if you feel like it. no earthing up, just watering and fertilizing as needed.

side note: in the future for a more fair trial comparison, do the same number of plants for each method. the results of 1 bucket potato or 3 grow bag potato plants are not a fair comparison to draw against an entire row of traditionally trenched potatoes. The results you get from which will not yield conclusive data. Furthermore, use the same variety for each test, or if you want to see what method works best for which varieties devote the space to trialing several plants of all the varieties all these different ways.

for example; if you want to trial 1 specific variety, plant 5 plants for each method of that 1 variety. If you want to trial multiple varieties like a red, a gold, and a russet and you have 5 planting methods to try out, do five plants of each variety for each of the 5 methods. You'd have a lot of potatoes at the end of the trial, but too many potatoes is a good problem to have. Best of luck to your future experiments.

[keithramsdell]

We volunteer for a gleaning organization and at no point have we ever planted whole potatoes. The potato farmer told all of us to cut the potatoes, leaving “at least one eye.” We let them dry out for 3 days, then trench plant a foot apart. Hundreds and hundreds of pounds of donated potatoes.

[scottcromwell]

A great upper-body exercise routine for us older folks. Find a room where you can comfortably stretch both arms out. Grasp a 5-pound potato sack in each hand and slowly lift, then lower your arms. Repeat ten times. Do this daily. After a couple of weeks, try it with 10-pound sacks. After a month, move up to 25-pound sacks. When that becomes easy, upgrade to 50-pound sacks. Then, when you feel confident, put a potato in each sack...

[NimrodtheWHM]

As a newbie gardener with limited resources to make my own mistakes: Thank you guys so much for all the work! My first plot in ground at the community garden has gone PHENOMENALLY because of you guys! All my plot neighbors are curious how I am doing things but can't argue with the results. Companion planting has been my biggest strength. We have deer roam around the community plots like it's a salad bar, but I would never know unless my neighbors weren't complaining about it every day. I've only had them munch my cucumbers, green beans, and a sunflower at the start of the year ONCE but since we introduced several other plants they haven't even so much as left a hoof mark nearby. You have saved me SO much grief, and I do believe kept my love for gardening strong my first year since it's not filled with so many failures due to ignorance that I lose motivation.

Super appreciate you guys and everything you do!

[cathleenbaldwinmaggi]

Next time try the method I've heard yields the most. I haven't tried it myself yet but it sounds promising. Using a grow bag or bucket with drainage or dig a deep hole in the ground. Plant the potatoes in about 4 inches of soil at the bottom of the hole, then add more soil as the plant grows. So when the plant is 4 inches tall and another 3 inches of soil. Keep doing this to the top of the bucket/hole, then treat as any other planted potatoes. The guy in Wales that showed this method had amazing yield over many containers. Basically the entire container was filled with potatoes.

[lindysmallwood]

I think the type of potatoes makes a big difference on return. Also where you live.

[bthyme]

When I used the Ruth Stout method, I kept topping up the straw, leaving a good healthy top. That ended up being a deep pile and a lot of beautiful potatoes. When growing in ground I found hilling made an enormous difference in yield.

[SM-tdux]

Ruth stout is a very thick layer of mulch. Like 12 inch then stomp and add more thick. Read her book and pls experiment more

[prezzle]

Some insight from an idaho potato farmer. A cut potato is going to have less vines meaning less numvers but the the spuds will get bigger.

Also variety matters. How we water reds and russets is completely different. Also how we plant reds and russets are different.

Also if you do this again you should try a regular mound. As well as the straw mound. That's how we grow commercial potstoes. We mound our rows 6 inches deep 12 inch spacing or 9 inch spacing if your going for reds and for numbers.

Last your friends advice is great advice. We go through and mechanically kill our vines since our season is too short for letting the vine dry out in its own. So if your season is too short you can always just cut the vines to start the hardening process. You just cut them then wait like 2 weeks.

Last just an explanation of why you had some rot is that it looked like your soil was quite wet. If the soil is too wet after the plant dies it csn cause the spuds go rot.

[joshuahoyer]

The method that netted us the best return was what we did last year. Bought 3 lbs of seed potato, and also had a couple store bought reds that sprouted. Ended up with over 100lbs harvested. Here's what I did:

Presprout the spuds and get them under grow lights for a week. Then cut into pieces with one or two eyes per piece and let it heal for 48 hours. I think we ended up with something like 40-50 seed pieces. Then I set each piece into a shallow tray of potting mix (1/3 compost, 1/3 coir, 1/3 vermiculite) and let them grow roots and shoots for a couple weeks until spring started to arrive. Got them in the ground early March (handful of bone meal in each hole), and added compost around each plant once they were a foot tall. Made a ferment of borage leaves steeped in water for a couple weeks, and poured it diluted a few times over the season with some fish fertilizer. Then we harvested the results throughout July. I couldn't believe how many came out of the ground. It took some work, and a lot of space on our garage bench, but it was totally worth it.

[ubercatta]

I was very successful with a modified Ruth Stout method ... a tower. The outer ring was six inches of straw and the dirt center was about 12 inches. The tower was around 3 feet high. I planted 4 lbs most of which I had cut and harvested 20 lbs of good size to tiny. I haven't done it again as setting up and harvesting is really hard by yourself but it remains my best harvest ever.

[MamaCZond]

I used both 35L plastic grow pots (large nursery tree pots) and 30gal grow bags, using the method suggested by Tony at Simplify Gardening (UK), and had amazing success. Potatoes, like tomatoes, have both determinate and indeterminate types. Knowing what growing habit the potato variety has makes a difference in how to plant within the containers. I also had drip irrigation set up for the plastic containers, which I had set outside the south side of my greenhouse. I never got irrigation set up for the grow bags but will do that next year. Even without irrigation, the grow bags grew very well with my occasional watering, and regular rain. My overall harvest was FANTASTIC, and I'm currently curing and prepping them for storage, which will hopefully last us at least partially into the winter.

[mustwereallydothis]

Canada has outlawed single use plastic shopping bags, so now we've all accumulated a ridiculous amount of cloth shopping bags. This year, I decided to use some of them as grow bags, and its been a great success. I planted potatoes in the largest Walmart bags. I started them half filled with soil and topped them off with mulch as they grew. I haven't harvested them all yet, but I have reached into one small section and picked a few pounds for dinner. They were huge and really packed in there. If the rest of the bag has that many, we're going to have a huge harvest in a couple of weeks. I also planted cukes and tomatoes, which produced as well as those we grew in similar sized pots. Two of the bags were very light fabric and are beginning to break down, but they should hold together just fine for the rest of the season so long as we don't try to move them.

[brooklynnchick]

😂 As a science fair director and science teacher, a Montana ranch girl, and long time homesteader, I absolutely adore your channel and this video in particular. The way you walked through the variables, showed the differences between methods, asked for predictions - you seem like a born educator!
When you’ve made your first billion or so with your seed company, maybe you could design curriculum for schools to help students learn gardening as they grow the fruit and vegetables needed for their lunch program or local shelter systems. ❤

[demystifyingagriculture]

very interesting. i just want to share an idea as to what method I've seen used back home in Africa. of course we use the trenched but Ive always wondered why the farmers always make heaps when they want to plant. I think the one you planted 12 inches gives the best reason for it as you see its clear with this that the plants do better when they have to struggle from a depth before they come out but most times its more difficult for the farmer to get them out of the ground. Hence, they make the heaps give the plants the additional depth after they have planted them which gives both the planter and the plants what they both want. The plants get a deeper depth than they would have gotten if they had been planted just 6 inches into the ground and the planter wont have but six inches to dig into the floor to harvest. I hope it makes sense to you. just my observation.

[jennaleigh]

This is exactly the kind of video that makes you and Eric so wonderful. Thank you very much for making this video.

[maryannehibbard]

Interesting. Here's my experiment this year: I planted in cardboard boxes (open top and open bottom). I planted them all standard 6" deep. Half, I simply let grow. They're gorgeous! Then for half the crop, as they grew, I filled in with dirt, with an end result of those potatoes to be buried approx one foot deep. At this point the plants are comparable. And it's not time for harvest yet up here in the north... So we'll see 🙂 (In my eighth decade and I still can't stop experimenting! 🙃)

[eugsmiley]

One thing to consider with the Ruth Stout trial is that your straw covering reflects the sun and reduces the soil temperature slowing the growth compared to your in-ground trials.

Also noticing that you have your 6" deep and 12" deep potatoes switched. 0:44 shows your 12" deep potatoes closest to your leeks.

[savinginstyle]

Is there a Reason why you barely put any Soil in the 5gal bucket? But in the other grow bag you filled it all the way up? Because it looks like you barely put even 2 gallons of soil in it 🤔