[pops]

Greetings
i have tried and failed twice now to grow spuds in containers,what i always end up with is alot of leaves above the soil and alot of stems below the soil with 6 or 7 small spuds at the bottom.
i use a  container i bought from the garden centre(originally supposed for toms) red in colour,could this be the problem  i.e should it be black ?
i place 3 to 4 well chitted spuds with all but 2 of the chits removed covering them with 8 inches of soil,just as the shoots start to show i repeat with another 8 inches of soil,and so on until the container is full,is this the right way ?

my kids are now taking bets as to how many spuds i end up with this time,even the wife has nicknamed me *Homer* but seriously,any advice would be greatly appreciated.
regards pops

[DD.]

A reply was posted which was a direct copy/paste from the RHS with no citation.

I have removed this and replaced it with the link.

http://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profiles0506/potatoespots.asp

[pops]

thankypu very much DD im a little new to all this.
pops

[scezy]

Hi Pops you say your using chitted spuds,are they just spuds left over from supermarket?Or are they seed potatoes?As this might make a difference to the success and size of crop you get.
Scezy

[pops]

Hi Pops you say your using chitted spuds,are they just spuds left over from supermarket?Or are they seed potatoes?As this might make a difference to the success and size of crop you get.
Scezy

hi Scezy,yeah they are seed spuds

[mumofstig]

Are you using 'soil' as in dug up earth or multipurpose compost. If you are using soil perhaps you need to add fertiliser of some kind.
Even using multi purp i still add fertilizer granules to my pots when i plant and when i earth up, as i do to the ones in the soil as the composts run out of 'food' after about 6 weeks anyway.
How long are you leaving the plants to grow, before you try to harvest? Perhaps you are tipping them out to early...and which variety did you plant? what size is container?

A little more info will help

[sunshineband]

The colour of the container isn't important, just so long as it is light proof 

[Snap Dragon]

I've got 4 bags of spuds on the patio and they are full of leaves!

I'm hoping there will be some spuds to harvest when the time comes... I can't believe how much compost I've bought to fill up the bags though.... they are costing me a fortune!

At least the compost can fill up my raised beds at the lottie when I've finished with it! 

[vetskh]

I usually find a few new potatoes and remove them by finding them wiht my hands down the side of the container then switch to another container and let the plants recover and grow some more. Meaning I get a longer harvest and more spuds. Maybe they need a bit more fertiliser?