How to Grow Potatoes in a Trash Bag

http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/11980/how-to-grow-potatoes-in-a-trash-bag

Here's how to get started:

Plan on planting potatoes about 2-3 weeks before the last spring frost in your area.

To plant a potato crop you’ll need a 30-gallon trash bag; a loose soil mix like compost and potting soil; seed potatoes or store-bought organic potatoes.
1.Prepare potatoes by letting them sprout several days before planting. Cut large seed potatoes into smaller pieces that have several sprouts in each piece.
2.Place the trash bag in a sunny place in your garden, patio or other growing spot.
3.Roll down the sides of the trash bag.
4.Cut holes in the bottom of the bag for drainage.
5.Fill the bottom of the bag with soil mix.
6.Plant potatoes about 2-3” deep in little hills with sprouts facing up.
7.Cover potatoes with soil mix and water.
8.Mulch with dry leaves or straw.
9.Keep plants watered, but not wet.
10.When the leafy shoots are about 6-7” tall, roll the trash bag up a bit and add soil mix to cover all but the top few leaves.
11.As the plants grow, repeat this process, keeping the potatoes buried and mulched; keep soil watered, but not soggy.
12.When the leaves on the plants turn yellow and the foliage starts to dry, stop watering so the potato skins can dry.
13.To harvest potatoes, carefully cut the side of the trash bag and remove potatoes.

I've heard of people growing potatoes in trash cans and straw. Never could figure out how the plant got it's nutrients. This sounds pretty easy and would be great for those on small lots.

That sounds fairly easy. I'll give it some thought and maybe try it.

Hubby was going to do wooden boxes with news paper that he read somewhere but he may end up trying this. I havent showed it to him just yet

Compost bags work great, the kraft paper kind. The soil at my house (as opposed to my 100-acre land) is only a few inches thick, before reaching coal ash, so growing root crops in the ground would be out of the question. For a couple of years though, I have grown potatoes in the large compost bags, the kind that most people put fall leaves in, and it has worked great. The fact that excess water can leak through the thick paper of the bag helps to prevent over-watering or fungus problem, while the thickness of the paper helps to keep the soil warm on cooler days and cool in warmer days. Plus, when it comes time to harvest the potatoes, I can cut a hole near the bottom of the bag and harvest only the potatoes that I need, and when I need them. The second year, I began loading them on a home-made flat-bottom cart that I can move around the yard for the best sun.

I've used landscape fabric to make bags for growing potatoes in. They worked pretty well, the fabric lets the extra water out and lets the air circulate around the roots. Trash bags can let heat build up because the plastic doesn't breath.

Do you thing that feed bags would work?

What material is the feed bag made of? If it is cloth it probably would work.

Patrice, thank you so much for that tip on the landscape fabrick. I've been saving all the bags from my pellets this year and I was going to use those but I don't like the idea of the plastic. I'm going to be getting landscape fabric anyway because my raised beds are going to be made from pallets and you put the landscape fabric on the bottom to help hold in the soil. Last year my friend down the road planted potatoes in those reusable shopping bags. She said she didn't get many but then those bags are not all that big. I'm going to take the pellet bags to another friend and we're going to fill them with her good compost and I'm going to bring some home and she's going to fill the rest and sell them for probably $5.00 a piece which is the going rate around here. I'm going to give this a try.