How to Grow Potatoes in a 5 Gallon Bucket (Part 2 of 2)

welcome back to part two of our container grown five-gallon container grown potatoes and what we want to do on this this part two series is I want to explain you know the five stages of growth as it grows along in the buckets and explain that diagrammatically and then we'll come it you know in the house at the desk and then each each step of the way will come out and take a look at it physically in the bucket so you see what that growth stage looks like so you'll know what to expect along the way when you're grilling these for yourself so hang with me we got some learning to do today together be right back [Music] you okay we're going to start our diagram on the progression of the five growth stages of these potatoes in our bucket now if you'll remember back on part 1 of our video we were used a five gallon bucket and we added full inches of soil on the bottom and then we put our seed potato in right about the four-inch level and then we covered it up with soil six more inches deep so I have soil from the bottom of the bucket up ten inches of soil and we have our little chip that was starting on our potato and it's ready to go so that's that's what we did on part one and a bit ago okay today I want to continue what happened in that bucket so since we planted it and I think it will help you to understand what's going on inside the bucket below the ground well I'm um while they're growing the first stage that you go through is called growth stage number one is the sprout development now that chip that we have we had Sol shits on each one but I'm just going to show one chip on these these chips they start to develop and they grow upward and they work their way all the way up until they hit the surface of that soil level and at that point you will see them emerge with some new leaves and what I call that right there I call that the Green Point this is for a determinant potato the potatoes that I planted out there were Yukon Gold and Pontiac red and they're both determinate and the reason I selected determinate is because I'm only working with a five gallon bucket so I when I fill it up the potatoes will develop from the green point down nothing will no potatoes will develop above this green point right here so always remember that and I don't want to put more than six inches on top of the seed potato I don't want to fill it all the way up because if I get more than six inches I have found that the seed potato is smothered and it actually starts to rot and I have to start over six inches seems to be about a sweet spot so I stick with six inches also what's happening down below this soil level is that seed potato is developing a whole bunch of little the little teeny roots all over it it's working so this is what happened in stage one until we hit to the green point so let's go outside and let's take a look at the buckets and see what that green point looks like okay here's where we were talking about the green point see how this potato has emerged right here and you see how the ground bold stuff and crumbled and started to poke through you don't want to help it come through you're tempted to come up and pick this right here and pull it apart and give it plenty of room don't do that just let it push its way and fight its way through because what it's doing while it's doing that is it's making it still stronger and stronger it cells developing in that stem structure biting its way through that soil which makes a better plant so leave the lead the soil the way it is just let them work their way through it and this is the green point this is what I was talking about from here down will develop taters it won't be anymore taters above this point so that's what they look like take a good look and at these potatoes where they're at growth stage one and then we'll be back in and the days ahead I want to take a look at the next stage okay we're going on to stage two is called the vegetative growth stage and what happens on this stage is on that stem that emerged from the surface down here it starts to grow right on up and we start to develop leaves coming out from the leaf nodes coming out from the stem and these leaves grow all the way out the stem the plant grows right all the way until it passes the arm the surface of the top of the the rim of the bucket and what's happening down below is we're starting to develop some roots that are coming out laterally these are called Stalin's nice big ones that come out laterally like that and you're also getting a bunch of this little teeny ones coming off too like that but this nice thick ones that are coming off those are the ones that are going to create some nice potatoes for you so let's just use these right here these we'll call these are Stalin's okay there's our Stalin's so what's happening above the green point is we're developing leaves and branches and more stem and below the green point we're developing more roots and Stalin's so that's what's happening when you see this group stage two now there's something I like to do when I get to growth stage two once I get past the bucket top of the bucket I like to come in and add in another level of soil I bring it right up to here until it's about two inches below the rim of the bucket I add the soil into here now what will happen to those leaves that were below the surface when I buried them all they do is just die off and rot off it's not going to hurt the plant all those little leaves that were growing we just cover them up because what we have left is this stem and these new leaves that are above the soil level now when I get it up to here I add the soil I also want to add a little layer of mulch right there then bring it up to rim of the bucket now the reason I like to do that with that mulch or straw leaves or whatever you have I usually use strong what that does is it keeps that sunlight from coming down and those UV rays penetrate down I don't want that sunlight to get down in here and turn my potatoes that develop later it will turn them green it does another thing as it keeps the hot heat off of this soil keeps it from just baking it so that's a protection from the high heat and it also retains moisture in the bucket so that these some these potatoes don't dry completely out so let's go out to the to the potato table and let's take a look at grow stage two and we'll demonstrate how to add into soil to backfill it and how to put into mulch okay here's our plants like we talked about and you see how they've cleared the top of the bucket easily so what I'm going to do is I'm going to take some fill dirt and I'm going to backfill and I start from the outside rim of the bucket and work my way in got to be very careful because these stems on these potato plants they're real delicate it break real easy so you want to carefully cover them up very gentle okay there you go and I go for the outside I work in like this towards the center of the plants see and once I got it in then I take some mulch this is leftover mulch I had from my fall garlic I saved it I'm going to use it again right around the top of this bucket and that tucks it in really nice for the summer protect it from the really intense heat and it also blocks the sunlight from coming down through and it helps to retain the moisture so there we go we've got the buckets all finished out for the for the summer I don't have to do anything else to these other than water them and we'll be back in the days ahead and look at the next step okay we got through stage 1 stage 2 now we're going into stage three which is tuber initiation stage now what the plants doing on the surface above the mulch on the part as you can see is you're going to see that stem continue to grow and add on more leaves and more more on foliage and that plants getting bigger and bigger is really a kind of a beautiful plan I like the way that the foliage looks on but this is what you see happen above the ground but what's happening above the ground level below the green point down here is I'm forming little tiny tubers and there are little teeny little things and they just are nothing but right on the tip of the Stalin it's nothing but just a little baby future potato but it has developed those right there and it's going to grow later on in the later stages so right now when you see your potatoes continuing to grow continuing to grow continuing to grow then you know that you are getting ready to start forming these little tubers on the tip of your stalin's now what I wanted to bring to your attention to is let's just call these on these little tubers okay there's something you want to start to pay attention really close to and you start getting all this foliage you know this plants doing a lot of things and it's going to need more water and everybody asks me how much do you water and how often do you water I'm going to demonstrate that outside but I stick my nozzle from my watering supply down into the bucket where I don't get the leaves wet I just stick my nozzle in and I spray and I flood this until I see water standing up here where I know I got at least a couple of inches two or three inches of water in it to where it can soak down it will soak down through this soil and eventually drain out the bottom I don't want this bucket to be standing and saturated water because it will rot the seed potato and it will rot my tubers it will rot my roots it gives me root rot problems and it also gives me fungus and mildew problems so I want this thing to be able to drain thoroughly and just water frequently and what I do is I water Ellie in the morning I avoid getting the foliage wet by sticking the nozzle in I give a good saturation so it can soak down all that peat that we put in here will hold in and retain that water all day and let that stay moist but not dripping wet and saturate it so it's good and moist and that will hold it until the next morning and I come out the next morning and I'll repeat the process and I do that every day unless it pours down rain if this and then I don't mess with it but a lot of times even with the rain it really wasn't enough so I always make sure I do that early in the morning that gives it time to dry out all day and not stay stand in water and be wet all night now that's the watering part of one chittery to remember another thing that happens when you get a lot of heavy foliage going is here comes the insect activity it's starting to get the hot part of the summer and you're going to see Japanese beetles hopefully not potato beetles and you'll see various different insects coming around looking for all this fresh foliage and what I use is 100% cold-pressed neem oil and I will mix that up a couple tablespoons on a gallon of water and maybe a half a teaspoon of dishwashing show soap and I shake that up in my bucket and I spray these leaves real good and I'll do that about every two weeks I'll come out and spray it down with that neem oil just to deter some of that insect activity so let's go outside and I'm going to demonstrate how to water and we're going to mix up some neem oil and spray the foliage okay we just talked about group stage three in the house on the diagram here it is out in two buckets take a look at the size of these plants how much they've grown from growth stage number two to growth stage number three you can see they're well above the buckets now very exciting time so up and down here and take a look at what they look like okay one thing that people always ask me about watering is how much do you water well that depends on a few factors how hot is it in your region and how fast is your evaporation and what you want to do is measure out so you know how much water you're actually putting in what I like to do for me in my region in the climate that I live in zone eight a in Newport News Virginia I like to put about at least a gallon of water and each of my five gallon containers one gallon per container and now how do I know how much water I'm putting in here's what I use I use an extended length with a nozzle on the end and if I use it where it's blasting like this it blasts out my moles and digs a hole and erodes a hole down around my plant which is what I don't want so I have a throttle on here I can throttle wet down see I throttle it down and slow it see how much easier it is now now how much am I putting in I get an empty five-gallon bucket if you look right here and I'm just by squirting in here how long does it take to fill this bucket about a quarter this is a 5-gallon bucket so if I got up approximately a quarter of the way you know that's going to be about one and a quarter gallons so if I time myself at the at the at the desired pressure that I'm trying to give this thing so it's not a rodent I got that set and then I time myself and I look at my watch I can tell oh it takes me one minute at that pressure to get one gallon in my container so that's how I remember that and here's how I actually do it instead of watering and getting the plant all wet the leaves you don't want to do that look right down here come up kind of close so you can see I like to stick my nozzle right in here see I stick my nozzle right down in there so it's not getting plant sweat the leaves and then I water from the bottom and I'll let that run for about a minute which is what it takes it that pressure that I'm giving it and it'll eventually give me one gallon of water in there so that I can soak it down and get a good soak on that bucket so that's how I do that and that's how much water I'm putting in how long I'm watering it and how I actually want it without getting the leaves wet because if you get the leaves wet every time every morning you're just going to create fungus problems and leaf problems with your leaves so trying to avoid that and I water every morning in my climate I do it early in the morning so it has all time that all day to soak through the bucket and evaporate and get good and dried out with then what the soil is still moist but not saturated I don't want it to sit wet overnight so I water in the morning so it has time to evaporate some I come back in the morning and do it a process again now if that pours down rain I skip a day but usually the amount of rain that we get in our area isn't enough to get the buckets what they need so I make sure that those that soil is moist so that's the watering part now let's step over here and let me show you about how to treat this stuff for insect activity okay what I do for my insect activity on my potatoes is the best way to deal with insects is prevent it instead of trying to cure it so if I can keep them insects from getting on there before they get started that's the best way to go because it's very hard to get rid of once they set in now on potatoes you're going to always see something nibbling at the leaves it's inevitable it's unavoidable don't lose hope when you see something chewing on your leaves a little bit so what I like to do is I use 100% cold-pressed neem oil i order this online and this is this is organic so it doesn't hurt anything here's what I do I take two tablespoons of the neem oil I put it in my sprayer and I get me one of these nice big sprayers that I get I got this one I think I got it at Lowe's and it gives me plenty of spray and if I have spray left over from my potatoes then I use that on my other vegetables around the garden to prevent bug activity now I've got the two tablespoons in here then I put about a quarter of a tablespoon of this just dishwashing liquid dishwashing soap because if I don't the oil will settle on the top of the water it won't mix and sink if you put this dishwashing soap in there it breaks up that oil and helps it to mix with the water so you're constantly having to shake your your sprayer so I put two tablespoons of neem oil 1/4 tablespoon of dishwashing soap and then I put one gallon of water now let me fill this up with one gallon we'll be right back okay I've got it up to the the one gallon level I've got one you could actually make two gallons if you got a whole lot to spray this is a two gallon sprayer and I'm just doing one gallon today so I put two tablespoons to one gallon I pump it up and this is a good spraying nozzle if you look right here on this nozzle you can see in my in the picture sweetie okay see how it's got a 45-degree angle on it this is good because when I spray from the top I can spray down then I can turn it over and stick it in the plant and it sprays up underneath the leaves that's where a lot of your bug activity is 99% of us underneath the leaves not on top so let's go over and spray the plants okay we're out by the tater plants and I want you to come up and look real close at the leaves of my plants and you'll see there's some activity on here right here and look see right here can you see where the bugs have been eating through that leaf and you look over here here's some more here's some more so it's inevitable they're going to get on your leaves no matter what you do but this will help slow it down okay now I've got my nozzle I got it in the up position Nancy will come right down here closer and show you I stick this nozzle right down in here underneath can you see down there can you see and see then I spray up see how I'm spraying up that's how you want to spray okay once you get the inside sprayed thoroughly you want to spray it I spray it until I have run off I spray underneath real good and give it a good old squirt then when you come out and you got the underside done then I come up on the top I do the easy part which is nothing more than just spraying the top of the leaves and once I have it sprayed underneath and on top that right there with that neem oil that'll last me about a week so if I can last about a week with one application that's good if you already see bug insect activity like you see here do it one day come back three days and do it again then do it at the seven day mark and then keep doing it every three day three or four days until you don't see any more activity and then just do it once a week that's how we take care of it with the neem oil and it's not going to be a hundred percent but it's better than nothing so start using the neem oil and make sure it's 100% cold-pressed neem oil probably have to buy it online okay we'll be back in a days ahead we'll go when these plants get to stage four we'll look at that one back shortly okay we're entering into stage four which is really a very exciting stage what you're going to see happening above the ground is the first time you'll see something that makes a big difference and you'll notice it right away is this stem will continue to grow and suddenly as it's growing and putting on more foliage you'll see blooms appear and these flowers are growing on the very tip and they're not very big they're pretty small flowers and they're kind of pretty I especially like the Pontiac red flower sir but anyway when you see these blooms going on that's what you see happening above the soil level but what's happening down below is even better all these little tuber cells that were on the ends of these stalin's they begin to expand and they turn potatoes they get bigger and bigger now that's an exciting time when you see the blooms then you know you're getting potatoes and one of the reasons that I added this extra soil up here to give it some more protectionists as this to dissipate a toe right here is swelling up it causes that ground right there just above it to get kind of a little bit of a bulge and it'll even have little cracks come down through that bulge and what happens is that ultraviolet light if it if it doesn't have any soil on here that ultraviolet light can go right through that crack and it hits your potato and sunburns it and turns it toxic and turns it green and you can't eat a green potato because it's you know poisonous to humans never eat a green potato so this is what we add this extra soil on here is as these tubers are swelling from this green point and that once on the top builds up a little bit I have extra soil to protect them plus the mulch so I have two extra layers of defense against that ultraviolet light so there we go with stage number four we're getting close to harvest so we'll go outside and take a look at what this group stage four looks like out on the buckets okay we're out here to take a look at the taters we just talked about stage four here they are and stage 4 so come on up kind of close and look at these you can see right here the blooms these blooms are a few days old so they're already starting to fall off and you can see like right here there's more blooms coming so they are just going into stage four and these are the red Pontiac they're Pontiac Reds if you look over here here's the Yukon Golds see they don't have any blooms showing yet you can come around over here and look kind of close you can see right down in here you can see new blooms trying to form see them right there so they're just a little bit behind the Pontiac Reds but they're coming but so these are they're moving along and we'll be back in the days ahead and we'll look at the next stage as soon as it gets here so we'll see soon okay group stage five drove Stage five is new is mature ation the plant is fully mature and you will start to see the leaves start to turn yellow and start to lose some of the leaves they look like the plant looks overall sickly looking you'll see all the all the flowers will die off they won't be there won't be any flowers left you'll see some of the leaves start to fall you'll see the plant droop look wilt looking look pale and yellow and it looks like the plant has some kind of disease it really almost done is it's done what it's going to do and it's just about time to harvest our potatoes so that's what you see above the ground is you see the end of your potato plant but what's happening down below is the potatoes have gotten as big as they're going to get so at this point what they're doing is developing skin that's really a very fragile skin but it does cover the potato in a skin so we'll wait for this plant to completely go completely down really rough looking and we'll go out there and we'll harvest them at that point so let's go outside and look at what the plant looks like in this group stage number five and that way you'll know what to expect and not be shocked when you see your plant looking like that okay here we are out of here at the taters and this is the late stage five for these containers and I want you to take a look that's what I was trying to emphasize to you because a lot of folks get confused and hey is this ready to harvest or not because this sure looks it it's wait till the late stage like that and but if things look pitiful it's probably the first time we actually look forward to one of our plants looking like that that's a good thing so we'll be back in the days ahead and we'll do a harvest video on these four containers just to show you what they finally look like and we'll put that video out in a couple weeks but we hope that you've enjoyed this series on how to grow these potatoes and understand the five stages a little bit better you know growing them into buckets and we appreciate you watching and if you like our channel we always ask you please subscribe be a part of our YouTube family join us on facebook follow us on that social media as well and just be a part of the family so till we see you next time always remember where all our taters really did come from came from the Lord so by us hands we're fed give us Lord our daily bread amen have a blessed day [Music] you thanks for watching our videos we really love making them if you like our videos please like our Facebook page to get the latest tips and tricks please subscribe to our YouTube channel to get the newest video like it it would really inspire and encourage us but most importantly share to encourage others will welcome your comments in question thank you have a blessed day

Channel: Hollis and Nancys Homestead

Views: 2,411,009

Keywords: Potatoes, container potatoes, 5 gallon potatoes, vegetable seed, seed, vegetable seed starting, vegetable seed planter, vegetable seedlings, garden seed, non gmo seed, oraganic seeds, oraganic seed starting, organic seed production, heirloom seeds, complete growing guide, vegetables, Advanced, spinach, tomatoes, onion, turnip, bean, squash, cucumber, eggplants, grow, container, how to grow, organic, non-gmo, carrot, lettuce, radish, fall vegetable, garden

Id: fH6ATJmVfxQ

Length: 31min 52sec (1912 seconds)

Published: Sat Jun 24 2017