"Whatever happened to my Transylvania twist?"

This year, as well as growing them in the ground, I've been experimenting with growing potatoes in containers. The reasons are numerous: you can grow more without having to dig, the compost is clean so the risk of blight is minimised, and because the containers are moveable they can be grown in otherwise idle corners. This year my containers have been of the cheap-and-cheerful variety; I bought some growbags, cut off one end and emptied the compost into a spare bag. I then turned the growbag inside out so that the black side was outside in order to let the compost warm up quicker (and it looks tidier). I rolled the open end of the bag down, punched a few drainage holes in the bag and added a small layer of stones for additional drainage. A six-inch layer of compost was replaced and a couple of sprouting potatoes placed on top and covered with compost.

As the potato plants grew they were earthed up and the top of the bag unrolled a bit to give more depth. They're very thirsty plants with all that top growth to maintain as well as growing tubers underground, but they don't like boggy conditions, hence the drainage at the bottom. Anyway one day after they'd flowered (and I needed some potatoes for supper) I thought the time had come to empty one bag and see how they were doing.

There was a lot of top growth



and a fair amount of success was evident.



Okay, so the local greengrocer isn't going to lose any sleep over the threat to his business, but they were fresh, organic and delicious.