- 7 weeks ago
Seven ways to grow potatoes go head-to-head in a real garden test, and the result is a surprise: the old trench method beats the fashionable new setups, while one deeper planting produces the biggest harvest of all. From buckets and grow bags to no-dig straw, shallow planting, deep planting, and cut seed potatoes, each method is dug up and weighed so you can see what actually works.
Elias walks through the good and bad of every setup, including drainage problems in containers, drying issues in fabric bags, greened potatoes in straw, and the clear advantage of burying more stem in the ground. The key lesson is simple and practical: depth matters, and hilling can help because potatoes form along the buried stem. If you want a potato growing guide, garden experiment, or backyard harvest comparison, this one is packed with useful takeaways.
Created for viewers searching for potato growing methods, how to grow potatoes, potato harvest comparison, garden trials, container gardening, no dig gardening, and vegetable garden tips. It is also useful for anyone looking for practical homestead gardening advice, old-fashioned planting techniques, and simple ways to grow more potatoes at home.
Elias walks through the good and bad of every setup, including drainage problems in containers, drying issues in fabric bags, greened potatoes in straw, and the clear advantage of burying more stem in the ground. The key lesson is simple and practical: depth matters, and hilling can help because potatoes form along the buried stem. If you want a potato growing guide, garden experiment, or backyard harvest comparison, this one is packed with useful takeaways.
Created for viewers searching for potato growing methods, how to grow potatoes, potato harvest comparison, garden trials, container gardening, no dig gardening, and vegetable garden tips. It is also useful for anyone looking for practical homestead gardening advice, old-fashioned planting techniques, and simple ways to grow more potatoes at home.
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00There is an old argument among gardeners that never quite settles, and it is this.
00:05What is the best way to plant a potato?
00:08For everyone has their favorite.
00:10One swears by the bucket on the porch, another by the fancy grow bags,
00:15another by the no-dig way of just tossing them under straw,
00:19and the old-timers by the plain trench in the ground.
00:23So this year, the question got put to the test proper.
00:27Seven different ways to grow potatoes, all planted the same spring,
00:32and then dug and weighed at the end to see, once and for all,
00:36which way truly gives you the most and the best potatoes.
00:40And I will tell you now, the answer surprised a good many folks,
00:44for the fashionable new ways did not win.
00:47The old way won, and one plain change to it won biggest of all.
00:53Today I will walk you through all seven ways and what each one gave,
00:58and hand you the one lesson that will grow you more potatoes than you have ever dug.
01:04I am Elias, and I have grown potatoes on this Lancaster County ground my whole life,
01:09so I had my own guess going in as to how this would fall out.
01:14And I will tell you at the end whether the ground proved me right.
01:17But let me give you the seven ways honest, the good and the bad of each,
01:23for there is as much to learn from the ones that failed as the one that won.
01:27Quick word before I go further.
01:30The old methods my family uses, there is more of it than fits in any one video.
01:35I gathered the whole of it into a book at EliasYoder.com.
01:40The book is the long version.
01:42If you want it, it is there.
01:44I will not mention it again.
01:47My grandfather had no patience for the newest gardening fashions,
01:50and I can near hear him now if he saw a man growing potatoes in a sack on his porch.
01:56He grew his in long, deep trenches in the good ground, the same as his father before him,
02:01and he dug more potatoes off a short row than most folks get off a whole patch.
02:07When I was young, I thought his ways old-fashioned,
02:10and wondered if the new methods might do better.
02:13And it took me years of my own trials to learn he had been right all along.
02:18This trial of seven ways is just the same lesson proven over again,
02:23and I was glad to see the old man vindicated by the scale.
02:27So let me give it to you honest.
02:29So here were the seven ways.
02:31The first was a potato in a five-gallon bucket,
02:34the way folks with no ground grow them on a porch or a patio.
02:38The second was in a grow bag, one of those big fabric sacks with three potatoes in it.
02:45The third was the classic, the plain trench dug in the ground,
02:49the seed potatoes set six or eight inches deep and a foot apart,
02:53the way potatoes have been grown for ages.
02:56Then three more in the ground to test some questions.
02:59One potato planted extra deep, a full 12 inches down.
03:04One planted the ordinary six inches deep,
03:06and one cut in half with each half planted six inches deep,
03:10to see whether cutting a potato gets you more.
03:13And the seventh was the no-dig way,
03:16the one where you do not bury the potato at all,
03:19but lay it right on top of good soil,
03:21and cover it thick with straw and hay,
03:24and simply leave it be.
03:26Seven ways, all in the same season,
03:29all dug and weighed at the end.
03:31Let me tell you how each fared.
03:33We will start with the ones that disappointed,
03:36for there is a lesson in each.
03:38The bucket did poorest of all,
03:40and it was a sorry sight at the digging,
03:43just a few tiny potatoes hardly worth the pulling.
03:46But hear me, and this is only fair.
03:49That was partly the grower's own fault,
03:51for the bucket had no drainage holes bored in its bottom,
03:54so when the rains came, the water sat,
03:57and the soil went sour and waterlogged,
04:00and a potato sitting in cold, sour water
04:02rots and stunts, and will not grow.
04:06So do not damn the bucket outright,
04:08for a bucket with good drainage holes and careful watering
04:11can grow you a fair few potatoes
04:13if ground is all you lack.
04:16But it taught the plain lesson.
04:18A potato will drown as easy as it will dry,
04:21and any container it grows in must drain freely,
04:24or you lose the crop.
04:27Drainage or death, for a potato in a pot.
04:30The grow bag did a little better than the bucket,
04:32but still poorly.
04:34And here the trouble was the opposite.
04:36The fabric bag drains and dries so fast,
04:39being porous all round,
04:41that it wants watching close and watering often.
04:44And when it was let dry, it stunted.
04:47Three potatoes went into that bag,
04:49and it gave back a modest handful of smallish ones,
04:53the size folks call new potatoes,
04:56tasty enough, but not much of a crop
04:59for three seed potatoes planted.
05:01So the bag and the bucket together taught the two ends of the same lesson,
05:06that growing a potato up out of the ground in a container
05:09leaves it at the mercy of the water,
05:12drowning if the bucket will not drain,
05:14starving if the bag dries too fast,
05:17where a potato down in the good deep earth
05:20rides through both the wet and the dry far easier,
05:24for the earth steadies it.
05:26Then the no-dig straw method,
05:28the one where you lay the potatoes on the soil
05:31and heap straw over them
05:33and never bury them.
05:34Now I know many folk love this way
05:37and swear by how easy it is,
05:39and I will grant it is little work,
05:41but in this trial it disappointed.
05:44The potatoes it gave were shriveled and greened,
05:47hit by the sun and the heat coming through the straw,
05:50for a potato exposed to the light turns green,
05:53and green potato is not good to eat.
05:56And worse, laid up in the loose straw
05:59and not buried in the earth,
06:01they were easy pickings for the raccoons and the skunks
06:04who dug and gnawed at them freely
06:06where they never could have reached ones buried deep in the ground.
06:10It gave a fair count of potatoes by number,
06:13but many were small or spoiled or green,
06:16and it wanted near as much fussing as the others in the end.
06:20Folks praise it as the lazy way,
06:22and it is little work at the planting, true,
06:25but between the greening and the pests
06:27and the sorting out of the spoiled ones at the end,
06:30the labor it saved at the start,
06:32it took back at the finish,
06:34and the crop was the poorer for it.
06:36So the no-dig straw way, for all its fame,
06:40came out middling at best,
06:41and taught that a potato truly does
06:44want to be down in the dark earth,
06:46covered deep, safe from the sun that greens it
06:49and the creatures that dig it.
06:51Now to the ones that won,
06:53the plain old ground plantings,
06:55and here is where it gets good.
06:56The classic trench,
06:58the five potatoes set six to eight inches deep
07:01in a row the old way,
07:02grew up beautiful, lush, and green and healthy,
07:06with hardly a pest trouble on them,
07:08for being buried proper in the ground,
07:11they were safe.
07:12And at the digging,
07:13they gave the greatest total haul of all,
07:15a great heap of good potatoes off those five plants,
07:19better than two pounds of potatoes
07:21from each and every plant,
07:22clean and sound and sized right.
07:25So the plainest, oldest, most ordinary way,
07:29the trench in the ground your grandfather used,
07:31simply beat every fashionable new method soundly.
07:35That alone is worth the knowing
07:37that you need no bucket,
07:39no bag,
07:40no special anything,
07:41just good ground and a trench.
07:43But here is the real prize of the whole trial,
07:47the one finding that will grow you more potatoes,
07:49and it came from that one potato planted extra deep,
07:53the full 12 inches down.
07:55That single deep planted plant
07:58gave the very most potatoes of any single plant
08:01in the whole test,
08:02far and away the most,
08:04better than three and a half pounds off the one plant,
08:07near half again what the shallow planted ones gave.
08:10Plant one potato 12 inches deep
08:12and it out yielded the same potato
08:15planted at the ordinary 6 inches
08:17by a wide margin.
08:19And once you know why,
08:20it makes perfect sense
08:22and it is the whole secret of growing potatoes big.
08:25For the potatoes form along the buried part of the stem,
08:28up above the seed potato,
08:30so the more good stem there is buried in the earth,
08:33the more places there are for potatoes to grow.
08:36Plant shallow and there is only a little buried stem
08:40and only a little room for potatoes.
08:42Plant deep and there is a long run of buried stem
08:46and up and down all of it the potatoes form
08:49and you dig far more.
08:51Depth is yield.
08:52That is the lesson of the whole thing
08:54and you can lean into it two ways, both good.
08:58You can plant deep from the start,
09:00a good foot down in the deep dug trench
09:03so there is a long stem buried from the first.
09:07Or you can plant a bit shallower
09:09and then hill the soil up around the plant as it grows,
09:13mounding earth over the lower stem
09:15again and again through the season,
09:17which buries more and more stem as it rises
09:20and does the very same work.
09:23The old growers did both together,
09:26planting deep and hilling on top of that
09:29and got the most of all.
09:31Either way, the aim is the same.
09:33Get as much of that stem buried in the dark earth as you can
09:37for every buried inch of it is more potatoes.
09:41And the cut in half test told its own small truth.
09:45The potato cut in half and both halves planted
09:49gave more potatoes than a single whole one planted shallow,
09:54but they ran a bit smaller so it near evened out.
09:58What it means for you is plain and useful.
10:01If your seed potatoes are few and you want to stretch them,
10:05you can cut them and plant the halves and get a decent crop,
10:08a good way to make your seed go further.
10:11Just let the cut halves dry and scab over a day or two first
10:16so they do not rot,
10:17though if you plant them deep as I am about to counsel,
10:20they take less harm either way.
10:23So cutting to stretch your seed is fine,
10:26but it is not the road to bigger potatoes.
10:30Depth is that road.
10:32Now a plain word, not a who-profits sermon,
10:36for the potato is no one's scheme.
10:39But notice what this trial quietly showed.
10:43The methods that cost money,
10:45the bought bucket, the bought grow bag,
10:47the special no-dig fashion,
10:50all came in behind the plainest free old way
10:53of a trench in the ground.
10:56There is a whole trade now
10:57in selling gardeners bags and buckets and systems
11:01and kits to grow their potatoes in,
11:03and here the plain dug trench,
11:06costing nothing,
11:07beat every one of them.
11:09It is a good reminder
11:11that the newest and the most sold is not the best,
11:14and that the old plain way,
11:16handed down because it worked,
11:18often still works best of all.
11:21The ground your grandfather trusted has not changed.
11:25So here is the whole of what the seven ways taught.
11:29The containers, the bucket and the bag,
11:32came last, at the mercy of the water,
11:35drowning or drying,
11:37and wanting close tending to give even a modest crop.
11:40The famous no-dig straw way came middling,
11:44its potatoes greened by the sun
11:46and dug by the critters for want of being buried.
11:50And the plain old in-ground trench beat them all,
11:54giving the greatest haul,
11:55clean and sound and safe in the earth.
11:59And above all, planting deep,
12:02a good foot down instead of the usual six inches,
12:05grew the most potatoes of any,
12:07for the long buried stem gives the potatoes
12:10their room to form.
12:12If you take one thing from all of this,
12:15let it be that,
12:16plant your potatoes in the good ground
12:19and plant them deep.
12:21That is what I would counsel you then,
12:23and it is what I do myself.
12:25Skip the buckets and the bags
12:27unless ground is all you lack,
12:29and skip the straw fashion.
12:32Dig your trench in good loose soil
12:34and set your seed potatoes deep,
12:37a good foot down,
12:39deeper than most folks will tell you,
12:40and you need not even fuss so much
12:42about curing the cut ones,
12:44for planted that deep,
12:46they take little harm.
12:47Then let them grow,
12:49and hill a little soil up as they rise,
12:52if you like,
12:53to bury yet more stem,
12:55and come the digging,
12:56you will pull up more and bigger potatoes
12:59than you ever did
13:00planting them shallow in a bag on the porch.
13:03The old way,
13:05done a little deeper,
13:06is the best way there is.
13:08Now I want to hear from you.
13:10Tell me down below
13:11how you grow your potatoes,
13:13in the ground,
13:14or a bag,
13:14or a bucket,
13:15or the straw,
13:16and what kind of crop it gives you,
13:18for I would like to know
13:19how these ways fare
13:21in other folks' gardens
13:22and other soils than mine.
13:24And tell me, too,
13:26whether you have tried
13:26the deep planting,
13:28and how it went,
13:29for the proof is always in the digging.
13:31I read every one.
13:33Next time,
13:34I want to show you
13:35the growing of the potatoes
13:36on from the planting
13:38to the harvest,
13:39the hilling up of the soil
13:41around them as they rise,
13:42which buries yet more stem
13:44for yet more potatoes,
13:46the watering of them right,
13:48and the digging and curing of them
13:51at the last,
13:52so you can carry your crop
13:54from the ground to the cellar.
13:56The old people grew their potatoes
13:59in the plain, deep ground
14:00their grandfathers trusted,
14:02and filled their cellars
14:04year on year
14:05by the simple, proven way
14:07rather than the newest fashion,
14:10and the ground never failed them.
14:13There is a quiet wisdom in that,
14:16in trusting the old way
14:17that has fed families for ages
14:19over the clever new thing
14:22that is mostly for sale.
14:24The people who built this country
14:26with their hands knew that,
14:29and we are only just starting
14:31to remember it.