Do potatoes need sand?

[dsmith]

My parents had a home garden. Then they had a really huge one in the country that they shared with someone else. She didn't grow potatoes at home cause she said the soil wasn't right. But the "country" garden was really sandy, and she grew great potatoes there. Also, are sweet potatoes hard to grow?

[daveedka]

Potatoes need well drained soil and soil that doesn't compact easily, Sandy soil has both of those characterisitics, but so do some other types of soil, not to mention that you can manipulate things somewhat. MY grandfather used to build mounds to plant the taters in and then keep fluffing the soil as much as possible so it never got packed.

Any root crop does better in loose well drained soil.
I'm not sure about sweet taters, but wouldn't expect they'd be that hard to grow.
Dave

[tentfire]

I grew up with a big garden and my dad always "hilled" up around the potatoes as they grew. Lately I have been reading how you can grow potatoes in straw and sawdust and stuff. I have some old, half rotted hay that I am going to try using. I have planted the potatoes a couple of inches deep in very loose soil, now I am going to pile the old hay on them as they grow and see what happens. I also have an old plastic garbage can with some holes in it that I am going to try planting some potatoes in. May even give that garbage bag idea a shot just for the heck of it.

Here is some of the info I found on how to do it this way:

www.humeseeds.com/potato.htm

I will be back on here sometime tomorrow, after I catch up on some MUCH needed sleep. Oh, yes, I learned last week why you can't plant the grocery store potatoes too well. They have been sprayed (soaked) with anti-sprouting chemicals (toxic) so they keep longer. YUCK!!!! All the "tuber-type" veggies at the store have been (potatoes, onions, garlic, carrots, etc.....) Yep, going to work harder this year at getting a garden going after finding that out!

[mastercatter]

Thanks for posting that link!

[tentfire]

You're welcome!

Here are a couple more articles with a little more detail:

Garbage Can Potato Planting
www.ehow.com/how_2222722_grow-potatoes-garbage-can.html

Trash Bag Potato Planting
www.diynetwork.com/how-to/how-to-grow-potatoes-in-a-trash-bag/index.html

I'm going to have to try both. Have my potatoes cut and curing.

[dsmith]

Thanks Tentfire (and Dave) That is great. I may have to give it a shot.