If you have to buy soil or other growing media (and I assume you would because if you have garden beds to plant potatoes in you wouldn't be doing it) the cost of the soil outweighs the worth of the few potatoes you will get. I tried it, not in a barrel but in one of those much advertised potato grow bags and I did get a few potatoes but not enough to ever bother with again and all of the potatoes in the apparatus were at the very bottom where the seed potatoes were planted, none further up the stem as was supposed to be the case. If you figure in the cost of the grow bag, plus the cost of seed potato as well as the cost of soil that was an expensive little bucket of fingerling potatoes I grew. Next time take the money to the farmer's market and buy 50 pounds of nice big well grown potatoes...
Karen
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