I have never done this, but I have read about it may times. If you take a large trash can (with drainage holes drilled in) and fill it with 10-12 inches of soil. Then you plant your seed potatoes eye up (I think it was eye up....) I cant remember how many you can plant, but I seam to remember that they can be pretty close together. Then as the plant grows a bit you fill up the trash can up to the first set of leaves (the more roots they have the more potatoes they produce). You continue to do this until the dirt is above the trash can line in a mound. Make sure that the mound is lower around the edge of the trash can so that you can water. Then when ever you want to harvest the potatoes just dig down a bit and you have potatoes. Or you can dump everything out onto a tarp and get them all at once. There is another way to do it with wire caging and straw, but it seams much more complicated than filling up a trash can. Onions can be easily be grown in containers, it can be a small operation with one onion per small plastic pot or much larger. My grandfather grows all sorts of stuff in plastic feed troughs with holes drilled in, meant for horses and cattle purchased at the local hardware store. I would imagine that one or two feed troughs for give you plenty of onions. As an added bonus they are raised almost to waist height so you donÂt have to bend down hardly at all. I use old black heavy duty nursery pots for my plants. They arenÂt pretty but they were free and work great. I wouldnÂt personally grow potatoes in a bag, because you would have no way to Âmound up the soil, therefore increasing your yield . I have herd of people doing this with tomatoes pretty successfully so I guess you could use it for onions, but I think it would be easer and more successfully donÂt in containers. Either way good luck and congratulations on the new house.

I have made several potatoe bags, and soup bowl holders, and have only had one person say their bag had a few dark marks, along with a small burnt spot, where one of the seams were sewn. Thinking it was just marks on the fabric, as maybe there had been some food source on the outside of the bowl, and she attempted to hand wash it out, then realised that it was definitely the start of a burn situation. She had placed two potatoes in the soup bowl holder and set it for 6 minutes.....no wonder it started to get so hot and she tossed it into the garbage, Some of the holders I originally made, I used 100% cotton, wrapped with polyester,,,,I since hearing her story make all items to use in the microwave with 100% cotton, fabric, batting and thread, I also include a card to indicate no longer than 2 minutes of cooking time per item. Here are instructions to make a potatoe bag. Cut one 9 x 20 inch rectangle each of the outer fabric, lining fabric and batting. 2. Place the outer fabric and lining fabric, right sides together and batting against wrong side of the lining fabric. Press the outer fabric lengthwise in order to have a center line - see #3 3. On your batting - Using a ruler mark a line across and down from the top at 6" - (use this line so your points will match in the middle at the top of the flap and line up evenly across the bag), and then trim at a 45 degree angle from the center fold, to the outside edge on each side. Stitch around all sides, leaving a 3"opening for turning. Trim the excess batting, and clip corners. Turn right side out, poke all corners and point. Stitch opening closed. You can quilt your bag, before you proceed. Or Not. Fold the bottom up to within one inch of your outside points and stitch the sides, to create a bag. Launder before using your new potatoe and vegetable bag.

Supposedly the all cotton ones are safe while any with polyester/cotton blend might go up or if the batting is not 100% cotton it's not safe, apparently the other batting is more likely to catch fire. A lady in CA. makes & sells lots of them & all materials must be 100% cotton she says. So any DIY person who decided to make them without finding out what is safe could put all their customers at risk & at Fairs & Boutiques you often don't get the maker's name. I wouldn't use 1 & wouldn't buy 1. I heard some people dry wet newspapers in microwave-another dumb idea!! Sofas often have had match or cigarette dropped in them & the person 'thinks" sofa is OK & goes off to bed only to find his home on fire in middle of night sometimes with fatal results .Candles must be on plate & watched, never go to bed or use them in small space, they burn up all the oxygen in the air, they also manage to burn down houses or smoke up walls even if in a tall glass container. Some from China can shoot up a sudden tall flame, happened in my family, it was small in a can smaller than tuna can & flames went about 15 in. in air. Not something you let burn all night. Be safe!!

chisue asked: "Do potatoes ever freeze in the ground before they are harvested?" No. Potatoes must be harvested befoe the ground freezes. However, on farms south of the Illinois/Wisconsin border, the potato plant dies and dries in September and should be harvested by the time the vine dries. Harvesting can begin as soon as the vine dies. Potatoes can be stored outside in a thick potato mound, but the mound must be constructed in a way to keep the potatoes from freezing and elevated a bit above the average gound level; They should not experience standing water, but at the same time, they need the earthern atmosphere to preserve their moisture content. Potatoes stored in a mound are good to about mid-March following harvest. If the frost depth is 18 inches, then the walls of the mound must be thicker than 18 inches.