Living off the land isn’t easy, especially if you’re trying to supplement your diet with homegrown foods.
Potatoes are an important staple for those who want a stock of filling, healthy foodstuff – these starchy tubers can be stored for long periods, and most importantly, can be easily grown in containers.
Step by step, I’m going to show you how to grow potatoes in a 5-gallon bucket, no matter where you live.
Step-by-Step Guide to Growing Potatoes in a 5-Gallon Bucket
Growing potatoes in buckets doesn’t have to be difficult. Follow this guide and you’ll have a full root cellar in no time!
1. Choose Your Potato Variety
There are so many potato varieties you can grow, and it’s up to you to figure out which will best suit your needs. Ask yourself some questions:
- How do you plan to cook your potatoes?
- Do you want them to be more starchy, or less?
- Are you planning to grow through fall and winter, and if so, which (if any) are cold hardy enough for your climate?
And on and on. It’s important to figure out what you want from your potato garden before you start planting.
Fingerling potatoes – the small, stubby varieties like the Russian and red thumb – are considered the best for container planting due to their small size, but you can still opt for standard-sized potatoes.
Remember, you’re not limited to just one variety. If you’re planning to use several buckets, you have the space for multiple varieties.
You should also consider if you want to start with seed potatoes or store-bought: seed potatoes are disease-resistant and grown for the purpose of replanting, whereas store-bought potatoes are more prone to plant disease and are sometimes treated with chemical inhibitors that limit sprouting.
I would recommend seed potatoes, though some gardeners prefer store-bought because they are more affordable and need less maintenance in the garden.
2. Choose Your Bucket(s)
As mentioned, we’re focusing on 5-gallon buckets, which is the most common type for container gardening due to their size, availability, and affordability.
But there are other things to consider when choosing buckets for your potato plants.
Materials: Most 5-gallon buckets will be plastic, but not all plastic buckets are made in the same way. I strongly recommend using buckets made of BPA-free and food grade plastics that won’t leach chemicals into your soil.
You also want lightweight plastic, which will make it easier to move your bucket to a new location if necessary.
Color: Opt for light-colored plastic, as darker colors will absorb heat and potentially overheat the soil.
New or Used: If I’m starting a new container garden I prefer to use new buckets, but if you choose used buckets, make sure you know how they were previously used.
Avoid buckets that have been used to hold pesticides, herbicides, and other toxic materials that could leach into your soil.
3. Drill Holes for Drainage
The water your plants receive needs to go somewhere! For this step, you’ll want a cordless drill and a drill bit of around ½ to 3/4 -inch drill bit.
This will form holes wide enough to allow adequate drainage, without letting the water fall straight through.
Flip your bucket and drill three to five evenly spaced holes across the bottom. You can also add a layer of landscaping fabric to keep soil from falling through.
4. Elevate
Your buckets need to be elevated so water will drain adequately, avoiding any risk of root rot or other bacterial issues.
Take a couple of spare bricks or 2 x 4s you have lying around, or anything that will provide a stable elevated base, and place your empty buckets on top before filling.
5. Prepare Your Soil
You can’t plant without soil, so it’s time to either buy pre-mixed potting soil at the store or make your own mix at home with compost and potting soil.
Mixed combination potting soil is recommended since additives like compost and perlite will add important nutrients and drain water more efficiently.
What’s most important is that you use potting soil rather than conventional garden soil, which is usually too compact for container planting.
If you don’t have access to potting mix you can use garden soil as a last resort, but make sure to combine it with equal parts compost and perlite.
6. Plant Seeds
Now it’s time to get your hands dirty!
You aren’t going to plant potatoes in the same way you would other vegetable seeds. Instead, you’re going to bury them further down to give them plenty of space and soil to grow extra tubers.
Add around four inches of your chosen soil to the bucket. Place two to three seed potatoes in the soil, then cover them with more soil until there is around 2 or 3 inches of empty space left at the top of the bucket.
7. Water and Fertilize
Finally, water the soil and potatoes until sufficiently moist – I recommend watering until you see it draining from the bottom of the bucket, to ensure the soil is fully soaked.
Potatoes need around 1 to 2 inches of water per week, though they may need more after the first month, which is when potatoes reach the crucial state of vegetable growth where tubers begin forming.
If you are worried that you aren’t providing your bucket potatoes with enough water, you can apply a layer of mulch around the plants to help retain moisture in warm weather.
Something like straw, old newspaper, or even dead leaves will work well.
Above all, don’t forget to fertilize your plants. Heavy-feeding crops like potatoes require those extra nutrients to grow healthy and abundant.
Apply a balanced, organic liquid fertilizer to the soil every 2 to 3 weeks. A good time to fertilize is when you hill your potatoes, a process I’ll touch on in the final step.
8. Hill Your Potatoes
Like many vegetables, potato plants have individual needs that differ from others. One of the major differences is that they need to be “hilled” during the growing process.
“Hilling” a potato means mounding soil around the base of the plant, which will help it to produce tubers more abundantly, and stop potatoes from turning green.
You need to begin hilling your potatoes when the leaves and stems of the plant reach 8 to 12 inches, according to the Michigan State potato growing guide.
Some gardeners prefer to do this earlier when the foliage reaches 6 inches, or even earlier when it first emerges from the ground.
Regardless, you should repeat the hilling process every few weeks until it is time to harvest the tubers. The higher you hill your potatoes, the more abundantly they will grow.
If you are growing determinate varieties, you can skip the hilling process altogether.
