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Growing potatoes on my balcony

Po-tay-toes. Boil 'em, mash 'em, stick 'em in a stew. Lovely big golden chips with a nice piece of fried fish.

— Samwise Gamgee

This year, I'm trying to grow potatoes on my balcony. I have never done this before, and even though I love my plants, I've probably killed a dozen for every one still alive. We'll see whether or not this little experiment will go right.

I've noted down my plan below, not only to share it, but also as a base to work from in the future. I'll post further updates whenever there is something interesting to post about.

The environment

Since I'm growing on my balcony, there's a few things that I can see going wrong:

The plants might not have enough soil. However, from what I've found they should be able to thrive in smaller containers.
I might need to water an awful lot, since my balcony's on the west, and gets a lot of sun in the afternoon. It might become necessary to move the plant inside at some point, if it dries out too much.
On the other hand, the climate being what it is these days, I might be caught off guard with more random frost.
My "seed potatoes" (read: leftover potatoes from my cupboard) might just be too weak. しょうがない。

The plan

Permanently "borrow" a big wooden box that was left over at my student association.
Line the box with some old plastic (maybe garbage bags?), leaving some holes in the bottom.
Chuck in 10cm of soil or so (maybe mix with compost, if I can get my hands on it. oooh, maybe I should build a composter as well, that seems nice).
Put in some sprouted potatoes left over in my cupboard.
Cover with 30-40cm or so of soil.
Wait until the potatoes show their leaves, then cover them again to force them to grow higher. I've been told this increases the harvest.
Once we reach the top of the box, let them grow out their leaves.
Harvest the potatoes that pop up out of the ground, and after a while, cut away the leaves and harvest all potatoes.

So far, I have gathered the box I mentioned in step 1 (which was quite a hassle transporting on my bike), and I'm waiting for the potatoes in my cupboard to sprout a little further.

In conclusion

If you read this and think I'm doing anything terribly wrong, I'd of course love to hear from you!

Thanks for reading!

Article published: 2021-03-12

Article edited: 2021-03-30

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