I remember seeing someone had grown a crop of potatoes in a bin. I'd love to do that but don't know how exactly. I'm disabled and can't do a lot of digging or maintenance so any ideas for growing veg and fruit in large pots or dustbins. I do grow tomatoes each year in a grow bag but am looking for other things to grow.

I've never done it myself, but I do remember Jamie Oliver saying that he has grown spuds in black bags etc - seems that you plant em, cover them with soil and let them grow. Then, once they start shooting up through the soil, cover them up with more soil - keep doing this each time the stems appear - i think it just encouranges the plant to grow more, resulting in a larger yield...
I'm sure there must be websites out there with good advice :)

Yes he did them in compost bags too. Tyres are also good for potatoes. Anything that is deep really. most veg grows well in pots and window boxes. Infact I had a book somewhere. I think it was charlie dimmocks container gardening that did a full salad in a window box.

We've done this for the last couple of years.

We used a couple of plastic terracotta patio planters - about 18" high, and 12"x12" square.

Put about 4" of compost in the bottom, then four seed potatoes, then cover with about 4" of compost.

Just like purple_frog says, when the leaves shoot through cover them with another few inches of compost, then keep doing this every time the leaves come through - this gives a new crop of potatoes at each fill level.

We ended up with a couple of good crops of potates - not tons, but enough to feed two of us for a couple of weeks through the summer!

i meant to try this year but never got round to it. I did, however, plant some carrot seeds in a large container and these have produced some great carrots with the minimum of effort (whereas the ones I planted directly in the veg plot all got eaten by some beatiesty just a few weeks in)

I used a massive trug. Didn't use seed potatoes (risky I know) but I wanted to see if it would work. I let 4 red chit and then filled the bottom of the trug with a few inches of soil. kept topping it up every time I saw shoots. I think one of the plants didnt produce so many reds, but the other 2 produced a few. some were a good size considering I only used small potatoes. The flavour was amazing. will definately do it again!!!
my grandfather in law grows a lot of fruit and veg in his garden. the flower buckets that morrisons have are black, he grows salad potatoes in those. you can buy them for about 30p each from morrisons. they shouldnt be too heavy to handle.

I have grown everything in pots, this year I have grown 2 lots of carrots, parnsips, very successful, spinach - not so good, it bolted. celery - not sure what happened with the celery, i think I planted it wrong, got the young plants from the heeley festival, still it looks pretty and we have had a few stems, I don't think it was meant to be cut and come again but its done a few meals. lots of salad leaves, and I have strawberries in hanging baskets. I think I would only ever grow potatoes in pots, this makes sure you have gotten them all.

Thanks for all the advice. I am definitely going to give the potaoes a try. I really love new potatoes. Any suggestions what variety would be best?

Tried it this year in compost bags and in several boxes filled with soil. I approximatley trebled the amount of seed spuds I put in but most were very small. In my mind I thought it was a poor return on this occasion.