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Containers

Growing potatoes in pots and bags

The short answer

Use a pot or bag at least 30cm wide and deep, with drainage holes, and plant one seed potato per 30cm of width. Start with 15cm of peat-free compost, add more as the shoots grow, feed them, and water all season. Earlies suit containers best: the plants are smaller and crop sooner.

RHS says potatoes in large containers produce a decent crop. It is the easiest way to grow a few new potatoes without a vegetable bed, and at the end you tip the pot out rather than dig.

Container and planting

  1. Choose a container at least 30cm wide and deep. A sack or bag works too, with holes pierced in the bottom so water drains.(RHS)
  2. Half-fill with 15cm of peat-free multi-purpose compost.(RHS)
  3. Plant one seed potato per 30cm of pot diameter.(RHS)
  4. Top up with compost as the shoots grow.(RHS)

Which potatoes

  • Early varieties are the most suitable, as the plants are smaller and mature more quickly.(RHS)
  • RHS marks two first earlies as suitable for containers: ‘Sharpe’s Express’ and ‘Casablanca’, both with the Award of Garden Merit.(RHS)
  • Blight is less likely to affect early varieties.(RHS)

Feeding, watering, frost

  • They need feeding. Mix an organic general fertiliser into the compost, or give a liquid feed once the compost runs low, after about six weeks for many peat-free composts.(RHS)
  • Water regularly all season, even in wet weather: the leaves can shed rain off the pot.(RHS)
  • Full sun.(RHS)
  • Keep pots somewhere frost-free, such as a greenhouse, until there is no longer any risk of frost outdoors.(RHS)

Harvest

When the plants flower or the buds drop, tip out the contents and pick the potatoes out by hand. More on timing: when to harvest early potatoes. Growing them in the ground instead: potato spacing.

Pots and beds, on one plan

Add your pots and beds to Vercro with what is growing in each. It keeps the record, and Today shows the few jobs that matter each morning.

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Where this comes from

The growing advice on this page comes from the published sources below, each linked beside the point it supports. Where two good sources disagree, we show both rather than choosing the convenient one. Reviewed 19 September 2026.