I decided to do something different this year. In years past I had grown potatoes in the traditional hills. the re-mounding weekly and then digging got me looking into different methods of planting potatoes this year.
Enter the potato tower
I had some leftover lumber from a different project, so I decided to use it and try making a tower to grow the potatoes in.
- First I dug down about 8 inches in a square the size of my finished bed. In this case the bed is 48" x 48". This is too big in my opinion, and should be 36" x 36" at most. Adding dirt, grass clippings and manure here is a bit of a pain because of the size.
- I constructed the frame from 2x10's and some spare 2x4's and a spare 4x4.
- I planted my seed potatoes at the bottom of my 8" deep trench and covered them with about 6" - 10" of soil. I planted early, so I covered them with a little more soil than normal.
- as they grow, I just add a combo of chicken manure, grass clippings, wood shaving from the coop and dead leaf mold from last year.
As they grow more Ill have to add another layer of 2x10's or maybe just 2x8's or something when its time to mound them again.
I planted some leftover marigolds in front of the bed. In the fall, after the potatoes are out, Ill use the bed as a raised bed, maybe transplanting some Brussels sprouts there or broccoli, or maybe just some salad greens?
Follow me for updates on the potato tower and its yield. I'm really hoping it works well. I started with 9 seed potatoes in the 4' x 4' bed, so Ill have to see how many lbs of potatoes I get from doing it this way.
Happy Gardening
CavemanRob
"Nobody owns you, Nobody owes you"
Hey, that looks great. How do you actually avoid the blight?
Growing organic potatoes is actually one of our goal to improve livelihood of locals in Kedjom-Keku (Cameroon) to save their mountain forest. Please, could you help us here on steemit? Check this out: https://steemit.com/nature/@kedjom-keku/do-it-for-forest-upvote-comment-resteem-to-save-the-abongphen-highland-forest-in-cameroon-11usd-10x10-m-forest-saved
Never really had blight as a problem. Voles are a bigger nuisance than blight for me. I grow these in almost exclusively chicken manure, composted with pine shavings from the coop, and leaves that the chickens also crushed up for me. I just try to get plants as healthy as possible so they can fight the blight, or any disease.
I see. Thank you for your advice.
Great idea. I'm growing potatoes in containers this year. Foolishly left only a few inches of space for adding soil. Duh.
I've seen people put stakes around the outside of a bucket and wrap burlap around that, and grow them upwards in a big burlap soil tube. Maybe that could work?
They sure get big fast.
Hello, Taica here. I am doing the selection of the most underrated posts and share it with my followers and the Steemit community. I my opinion there is too much quality content on Steemit which remains overlooked everyday and lost in the blockchain.
Here you can see my latest “Taica’s selection” containing your post, which I’ve also upvoted and resteemed.
https://steemit.com/chainbb-general/@taica/taicas-selection-22-share-moments-steem-life-repost
If you like this post you can show the gratitude by following me and upvoting, resteeming Taica’s Selection
NOTE: In Taica’s selection thread I am searching for a (in my opinion) genuine and nice, quality posts. The topic is not about giving my critique about the posts or authors that I include. It is simply something that I like and want to share with my followers. Should you disagree to be included in my topic, please let me know and your links will be removed. Thank you.
Share moments, Steem Life
All the best @taica