How to...Plant potatoes in buckets

Give your potatoes a head start by chitting them about 6 weeks before planting - that means they start growing shoots. 

The varieties I use with schools are first earlies in order to be ready before the summer holidays. Rocket and maris peer are quite good, but the best, in my humble opinion are Swift - a lovely potato that holds together once boiled and makes for a delicious potato salad!





Start chitting from the end of January.

Egg boxes are pretty handy to pop the potatoes in, then keep them somewhere light and cool, but nowhere they are likely to get frozen.

I use cut flower buckets from Morrisons to plant the potatoes in. They sell them at 8 for 99p, although more often than not I've been given them free, especially if I mention working with a school.

Put a few holes in the bottom for drainage.













After 6 weeks of chitting, get some multi-purpose compost, some children and stand well back whilst they break up the lumps.

Fill the bucket about a third of the way up. Gently put 2 or 3 chitted potatoes in the compost, being careful not to knock the sprouts off. Then cover with compost until the bucket is two thirds full.
 

If there is still the likelihood of frosts, wrap the bucket with fleece which is very cheap from most gardening centres. As soon it warms up the fleece can be removed.






When leaves are beginning to poke through the top of the compost, add some more to cover and fill the bucket to the top. This will encourage more potatoes to develop.








Potatoes need quite a lot of water, particularly when the weather is hot. Perhaps about half a large watering can per day or every other day. I was in this particular school every week so could oversee one watering session per week and we still had a good crop.

The more you look after them, the better the harvest.

Just before the summer holiday started, we harvested the potatoes. Much fun was had making soil sandcastles and then discovering the treasure!










The younger children enjoyed lining the potatoes up from smallest to largest. The older children had conducted an experiment to see what was better; planting 2 or 3 potatoes in a bucket.


We used our lovely potatoes to make two salads for the end of term celebratory picnic - two recipes I've used with great success are a creamy potato salad and a pesto potato salad.