The Potato Planting Demonstration on Saturday Feb 23rd was a great success. Everyone got to participate in cutting the potatoes and planting them.
Mike had a very intent audience as he showed examples of good potatoes and bad potatoes.
What are they looking so hard at? Maybe the potatoes were escaping - that might explain all the laughter in this picture.
Two methods (bag & tote) were extremely easy and fast to do. The bag came from Gardener Supply as a Potato Bag Kit which contains a potato bag, 3 bags of soil mix and fertilizer. (You have to buy your own potatoes.) 
The basics were the same for using the potato bag and the tote. Put a 2-3 inch layer of organic material in the bottom, put in the seed potatoes, cover with another 2 inches or so of organic matter, fertilize and water in well.
Wait until the potatoes begin growing and when the sprouts are 4 inches or so tall, put dirt around the stems (but leave some green leaves sticking out), water and wait some more.
Repeat this procedure until the top of the container is reached. Potatoes will form all along the stem that is buried in dirt. If you want to read more about Growing potatoes in containers, this is a good link.
The tote is a super size plastic bin (18 gallons or more). Because it is solid plastic, you need to punch lots of holes in the bottom and along the outside edge to provide drainage. Once the holes are punched, fill with soil and potatoes.
It will be interesting to see which produces the most potatoes - the tote or the bag.
We also constructed a potato tower but that will have to be in a separate post!
