Growing Potatoes In A Square Foot Garden – My Results
There are a great deal of different vegetables you can grow in a Square Foot Garden. In fact just about anything you can grow in traditional row gardening can be grown in this type of vegetable garden – a lot more efficiently it seems!
However for this article the humble Potato takes centre stage as I share with you my own story of growing potatoes in an SFG. To be more accurate, this was an SFG that was shared with several other vegetable types, and not exclusively potatoes.
So What Is A Square Foot Garden?
This is a simple technique pioneered by Mel Bartholomew back in the 70’s and it involves growing vegetables in a 4 foot square timber frame, split into 16 squares and filled with his ‘Mel’s mix’ compost mixture.
Once this SFG is set up properly then vegetables are grown in each square in numbers of 1,4,9,and 16 plants per square depending on the size of the plant and the space they need to thrive
The secret to the success of this vegetable growing technique is a combination of great growing compound or compost mix. Along with a basic understanding of what a plant needs to grow and prosper.
The principles of companion planting and rotational growing techniques all come into play in order to create a growing area that will produce vegetables of many types throughout the growing season.
With proper operation, this method can provide an average 4-person family with most of their vegetable needs – with only 1 SFG. If using several SFG’s then the sky really is the limit with regards to vegetable production.
How Many Potatoes Will Grow In A Square Foot Garden?
As there are 16 squares and you can really only grow 1 potato per square, you are restricted to growing 16 potatoes in an SFG.
However… You may grow more if you are content with small potatoes maybe for the salad dish – or you just like small potatoes boiled and served with butter – my favourite!
In the pictures you will see that in my own Square Foot Garden I planted just 1 potato in each of the 2 squares.
In the other squares I had a mix of carrots, onions, beetroot, shallots, strawberries, and peas and beans climbing a frame I attached to the rear of the SFG.
The SFG has many benefits
over traditional vegetable gardening methods, 1 on which is the intensive growing method you can see from this picture. More info on the benefits of a Square Foot Garden can be found in this article on SFG.
How To Plant Potatoes In A Square Garden
This may seem like a basic question, but not really! The reason is this. If you’re SFG is only the standard 6 inches deep – then you may have a problem if it is laid on a solid surface such as concrete or paving slabs. Yes you can place a SFG on solid surfaces depending on what you are growing.
The answer to this problem is simple. Either make your SFG frame deeper – say 12-18 inches deep. Or make sure you place the frame on a soil surface. It does not have to be good soil, but make sure it is well broken up before you plant your frame in position.
In my own example I laid the frame over poor soil that I had turned over before-hand. The potatoes grew exceptionally well, and the results really surprised me.
The correct compost mix for a SFG is an essential part of the process and more information on this can be found in this article on Square Foot Garden mix
Potato harvest Results
Now the fact is that I only planted 2 potatoes in 2 squares to get great results from a potato called ‘Pentland Javelin’ which is a first early potato with a waxy variety great for salads.
Actual return on my ‘investment’ of 2 spuds, was a resounding 14lbs of potatoes!
Now I have an idea for next year to plant not only more potatoes, but what about splitting the whole SFG between first early, earlies, and main crop potatoes?
This way I could have potatoes throughout the growing season – a great result!
Another great bonus was the cleanness of the potatoes themselves – and the ease of harvest. You may see from the picture that the compost mix is quite sandy (great for the carrots), which means that drainage is excellent.
The potatoes came out super-clean with no signs of slug damage (a real problem where I live) or blisters/warts.
No heavy digging with the garden fork, a simple hand fork done the job easily.
This simplicity and ease of harvesting vegetables is one of the main reasons I turned to no-dig gardening methods. The bumper crops and ease of maintenance gets especially important as the years march on and your energies have to be spent more efficiently!
Conclusion of Potato Growing In A Square Foot Garden
Overall I have to say that I am mighty impressed with this method of growing potatoes. For this exercise I only risked 2 squares of my SFG – and the results impressed me enough to say I will be building a few more frames and dedicating them to growing potatoes in future.
The other 14 squares were used to grow a variety of different vegetables, the numbers of seeds per square easily sorted out by using this simple fixed template for sale on Amazon.
My days of growing potatoes in heavy soil are over!
