How many potatoes to plant in a barrel?

[Cligereen]

Hi all,

Two Q's.

I'm about to plant a half barrel with Charlotte seed potoatoes tomorrow and I'm not sure how many to put in. I bought a large bag, ready chitted for €2, which i thought was reasonable, but I'll have to use a few old coal bags for what's left over.

So, how many in a half barrel do you recommend? - and then do I put the same again in each bag?

Also, I have three short pieces of square, hollow concrete drain pipes. They are about 18'' high and the hole is about 4'' square. Will they be OK to grow courgette plants in if I stand them up on end?

Thanks in advance,

Clig.

[hamster]

I'm planning to plant 5 in a dustbin and I'd guess about the same for a barrel. I'm putting 2 in old compost bags and 3 in some slightly larger bags, but if your bags are huge you might get more in. I read you should aim to leave about 12cm-15cm between each one.

No idea about courgettes, though, sorry!

[Cligereen]

Thanks Hamster,

Looks like I'm going to have a rather long row of bags then until I can get some more ground weed free .

I think I'll give the old courgettes a go in the pipes because they're ready to plant out. Not sure if the concrete will affect them, but I've a good compost bin ready for use. It'll save a good bit of space if it works.

[MKG]

I'd say 5 too, on the grounds that I've read that you can plant more but then the yield per plant would be less - this assuming that you're chasing the plants up the barrel with more compost as they grow.

[MKG]

Speaking of potatoes, I noticed that the five plants I have in a tub (which are threatening to outpace my earthing-up efforts) are behaving in a funny way - they closed themselves up for the night. Has anyone else noticed this, or is it just absolutely normal and I haven't noticed it before?