I'm Gutted - spuds nearly a failure!!

I'm gutted... my wheelie bin spuds (Sante i think) that I've grown this year are a real dissapointment.. They were full grown looking like a great crop would be reaped. I emptied them out today and very dissapointed.. Only 5kg... there were a lot of small and very small spuds still on the roots that have not filled out.. I had a lot of good spuds near the top and not too many lower down. Still pleased with is as it is something I heard about doing...

But I think know the reason.. as it was eventually a full bin of soil and commpost I did try to get water down to the bottom but obviously not enough because the soil was very dry when I emptied it. Obviously too dry to grow the littles spuds big!!

I will make up a hose pipe with holes and plugged end and use it to get down to the bottom next year.

Has anyone experienced this problem before?.

I did give them a fair amount of compost and manure etc but I really think it was just too dry...

I had the same problem growing spuds in a tall raised box.

Better than a hosepipe, use 2-3 lengths of drilled rigid pipe about 2-3" wide standing upright straight to the tub bottom. Space them around the tub. That'll get a lot of water down there and fast.

I tried the same thing with hosepipe, but it tends to get squashed when you fill in with soil, or the spuds pushing the soil around as they size up. very little water gets down a squished hosepipe no matter how many holes you make. That's why I recommend the wide, rigid pipe which is what I'm doing with mine next year. My raised box got so dry that ants moved in 

With deeper raised beds that are less than 2 ft deep, I've found that using  2l soft drinks bottles buried to leave two inches sticking above the ground do the job well.

You can punch holes on them or just leave the top off --- werks fer me (and they are free  )