I'm a firm believer of growing potatoes in containers, and one question that I
always get asked is, how often should I be watering my container potatoes? Well
in this video; I'm gonna answer that question for you. And I'm gonna give you
a load of tips to help you retain water and make your lives much easier. I'm Tony
O'Neill and this is Simplify Gardening where I show you how to garden in a
simpler way. If you want our perfect garden to relax in, or just want to grow
your own nutrient-dense foods. Then start now by clicking the subscribe button and
the bell icon. Then click all to be notified each time I release new content
just like this. But before I get into the content though, I would just like to say
a massive thank you. Because a couple of days ago my channel hit 100,000
subscribers and 8 million views. I'm totally really appreciative of
that and it's really humbling, the fact that you guys continued to support me every
single day. So thanks very much for that I appreciate it. So let's get back into
the content. If you asked a hundred gardeners which is the best way to grow
potatoes you'd get a hundred and one different answers. For me though, it has
to be the container. Whether you're growing in pots, bags or any other
container, you get to choose the an actual environment that your potatoes
are growing in and you're not governed by the quality of your soil because you
can control this environment completely. Now one thing that I've noticed with a
lot of new gardeners is that they struggle when growing in containers due
to the sheer amount of watering that's required. They say that they're
constantly watering every single day and they're losing all the time because they
can't keep the soil hydrated potatoes require about an inch and a half of
water per week and that includes rainfall. And in containers, though I know
the people are struggling because in a container the surface area can evaporate
and the water can run out of the holes in the bottom, so it can really make keeping
these moist like quite a difficult task. So I'm gonna
give you a load of tips in which to not only conserve moisture in these
containers, but also make your lives easier. But before I do that I'm going to
answer the question outright. How often do you need to water potatoes in
containers? Well you need to water about once a week when you first start your
container, and then as the height of summer comes then you want to be
watering around about every three or four days. Now I know for some of you
that's unbelievable because you've been watering these every day and they've
still been dry. But I'm gonna give you those tips right now. You may have tried
growing potatoes and containers for many years and found yourself watering every
single day huge amounts of water to keep them hydrated. So here's a few tips to
help you with that and kept the work down for the gardener. So my tip number
one is to consider your soil. Soils hold varying amounts of moisture and compost
is really good for this because it holds lot of water due to the amount of
organic matter in it. It soaks this up like a sponge. Now it's really important
to keep your compost or soil, whatever you're using moist, because if you don't
keep it moist it will dry out and it will shed water rather than absorbing it.
And you think that you've given it enough water when in fact it's actually
just running off. Tip number two is to bury the container about a fifth of its
height. Now, as you can see I've done that right here, now what this does is, it
allows the water that is released will be holes in the container to be absorbed
by whatever you bury the containers in and this is fantastic because that water
can be absorbed instead of being lost and then it can be released back into
the container via the wicking process. Now as you can see what I've done here I
haven't buried my buckets. I've actually laid down a membrane and I've
placed the bucket on the membrane and then I've buried around the buckets
with woodchip of different particle sizes. And that's quite important as you
can see, we have all different sizes of woodchip particles here and both this
does any water that is shed from the buckets is held within that wood chip
and then it can be released back to the buckets later. That will also keep the
containers cooler so if you're suffering with heat like I know a lot of you are
in Australia and other places what this does it as this gets wet from the water
that's escaped from the containers it is absorbed into this and these then act
like a heat sink. And it absorbs the heat away from the potatoes, so it's another
really good point in mulching around if you're using soil it doesn't work so
well but using a woodchip around and it absorbs that heat really well, so it's a
really good way in to remove some of the heat from the containers in really hot
places. Now tip number three is to mulch, and a lot of you are now growing in
these containers are very similar because of my potato growing videos that
you've seen and I've never noticed anybody else using mulch but it's really
important to mulch the surface. Now this does a couple of things, not only does it
retain water in the actual compost or the soil that your using but it also holds
moisture, because this mulch is absorbent and again that will hold moisture
keeping a moisture cap on top of the soil and will release that into the soil
as is required. Mulching the surface can not only help to keep down evaporation
but the mulch itself really absorbent so it holds the moisture and it releases
this back to the soil as it dries out. Now I thought I'd give you a practical
view on this because I watered these potatoes five days ago. And as you
can see the mulch on the surface is really dry, but as you get down
through the layers, it becomes moister and moister and even the soil itself is
still very moist so it's a perfect example of how the mulch holds and retains water.
These were watered five days ago, and the soil itself is still damp and this is
perfect for potato growth because it has the moisture and the heat that's
required for really good potato growth. Now the mulch holds that moisture and
releases it as its required and the Sun can't bake the top of the soil surface.
Now this is good for a couple of reasons but the main one is because it aids in
future watering because that soil doesn't then just shed the water. These
three tips will really cut down on the amount of water you're using and will
save you hours worth of time in watering throughout the season. And this is how
I'm growing mine this year because it will save me loads and loads of time and
it will also allow the potatoes to fend for themselves should I not be able to
come to the garden due to the current circumstances. So the next thing is, we
need to look at the different forms of watering that we could use with these
and their benefits and the reason why we should use each of those. The first way
is to water by hand using a watering can. Now I know that this is a way in that
most people are going to water their potatoes. And we simply water until the
water runs out of the holes in the bottom. But is this really a sufficient amount
of water? I think not. And the reason for this is because if you have allowed that
soil to dry out then that water will be shed by the compost and literally
run down the sides of the containers and out of the holes and you think you've
given enough water but where in reality it hasn't absorbed enough at all. However
the running water out to the bottom of the container is a great way to tell if
there is plenty of water. But you need to do in a couple of ways. If you find that
you have dry soil then you need to water first give
it about ten minutes and then give a second watering until it runs out the
bottom of the container at that point you know you've absorbed enough water
into the soil to get it totally saturated and the soil moist enough
right throughout its whole entirety. Give it a second watering and if the soil is
moist you don't need to do that you can just stick your finger in up to its knuckle
and you'll know if it's moist or not. The next options we have would be to use
some form of drip irrigation such as these, or even T- tape or soaker hose a
perforated hose that runs across the top and when that is pressurized it will
slowly drip water onto the soil surface over a period of time. Now that's really
good if you've got time to allow it to water or you can set up a pre watering
time schedule via an electronic timer or something, Because you can just
connect it to a tap leave it on and it will kick on and off as and when which
will keep these moist. However you decide to water remember this one tip you're
far better off watering deeply and making sure that all the soil is moist
then watering every single day. Get that soil really moist
right from the start and it also helps with the next watering from being
absorbed. Knowing when to water is also really important. Simply pull back the
mulch, stick your finger into that compost and if it comes out that you've
got compost on your finger you know its moist enough if it feels dry or anything
like that, it's time to water, and water it well like we've already discussed. Now
although I haven't done it yet I'm implementing some other techniques
across here that will help me grow my potatoes this year. I'm going to raise
some wire mesh screen with holes around about four inch square like cattle grids
cattle wire and that's going to be raised maybe about a foot and a half
above these containers. What that is going to do is allow the potato haulms to
grow through that wire mesh, it will support all of
these container haulms as one unit. So when it's windy and it heavy rain the
tops of the potatoes will stand up straight this will allow me to get in
here and water if I require it, but more importantly it keeps the foliage up high
this will stop and act like a canopy stop that Sun beating down on the
surface, but more importantly it stops the foliage from being battered over the
sides. That keeps the plants much stronger but also it stops that stops a
constant bombardment it creates a shield and some shaded area for the buckets
which will help retain water in really hot climates. This may be something that
you guys in Australia can use because I know loads of you have had loads of
problems with the heat this year. So if you put like a wire mesh above then
that will support that foliage up here rather than it flopping over the sides and
that will act like a shade instead of you having to shade cloth everything. Now
I'm gonna answer four other questions that I know I'm gonna get asked. So I'm gonna
answer them here to make it easier. What size containers do I recommend? well I've
tried all sizes of containers over the years and if you look back through my
videos you will see me using a hundred and ten liter you'll see me using 50
litres and 30 litres and even smaller. I always revert back to these 30 litres
containers because they give me the best results for the amount of effort and
materials I have to use. So 30 liter or 10 gallons would be about perfect. The
second of those questions is. Wow it must be really expensive to fill all these
containers? I have 80 of them that I filled this year. Now before I
continue I've answered this loads of times but buying compost for your garden
is probably one of the best investments you can make, it has a total amount of
organic matter and everything else it improves the fertility of your soil and
it also improves the structure of your soil. And if you do go down that
road of buying compost you can reuse it for the potatoes don't just stick it
straight in the garden, grow your potatoes in it first, and even use it for
a second year. But, it's not a waste of money because then you can use it in the
garden afterwards. However, all of the containers or I would say 95% of the
containers I'm growing in this year have all my own homemade compost. Now I made
about 5 tonnes of compost last year and that's what I'm using in 95% of my
containers. Some containers aren't using the compost for a reason for the video I
explained earlier on with regards to what medium is best. So some of the
containers don't have that compost in. But 95% of it is all homemade, and I'll
put a link in the show notes below on showing you exactly how i make that
compost and how I make so much of it. Question number 3 that they will get is
what mulch are you using. Well for the floor I'm using just standard woodchips
and you can get these from any tree surgeon in your area, so pick up the
phone. It may be a little hard at the moment with not so many people being in
work but they always have to get rid of this because it's a waste material and
usually, they have to pay to dispose of it. but they're more than happy to drop
it off to you usually free of charge. Now for the top of the containers I'm using
rape straw it's a byproduct of the oil seed rape industry and it's fantastic
because it's chopped up nice and small and it holds loads of moisture now you
can get this it's typically sold for horse bedding so you'll get it from most
farm shops. And the fourth question that I'll probably get is. Can I use
anything else as a mulch that I don't need to buy? The answer for that is
yes. Again as described you can use these
wood chips but at a push you could even use old homemade compost or even
shredded cardboard or paper things like this, grass clipping.
All of these can be used as a mulch to help protect the surface of that soil.
Follow these tips and you'll never have to waste lots of money and time watering
your potatoes again. If you've got value from this video, you can subscribe here.
And when you've done that this is the next video should watch because this
will show you exactly everything you need to know about growing potatoes. So
that you get stunning harvests. I'm Tony O'Neill and this is Simplify Gardening
where I show you well to garden in a simpler way. don't forget folks You Reap
What You Sow! I'll see you in the next one. bye-bye.