Growing your own potatoes is very satisfying, and does not depend on possessing a large vegetable garden. Salad potatoes grow well in containers.

Choose an early variety of potatoes, as earlies grow well in pots - main crop varieties do not. Potato varieties particularly suited to container growing are:

• Amandine
• Annabelle
• Charlotte
• Swift

Chit the seed for about six weeks, so that the sprouts are about 5cm (2in) long, and dark in colour.

• Find a large container - at least 30cm (12in) across and deep, with drainage holes. Buckets, dustbins, plastic crates, pots or a heavy plastic bag will do the job if they have drainage holes in the bottom.

• Put broken pottery, stones or polystyrene crocks in the bottom of the container to cover the drainage holes and prevent them getting bunged up with soil.

• Add a layer of compost 10cm (4in) deep . Use multipurpose compost or a mixture of loamy garden soil and compost or well rotted manure.

When to plant potatoes in containers

• Late January in an unheated greenhouse, cover with fleece in frosty weather
• Outside in late February in mild southern areas, or April in colder parts. Protect from frosts when forecast.

Plant the potatoes

• put three seed potatoes on the surface of the soil
• place so chits pointing upwards
• cover the potato seed with 15cm (6in) of the compost or soil
• add water if the compost is dry - until it drains out of the holes
• do not water again until the shoots appear
• place the pot in a light, sheltered spot