Potato towers: The great harvest - Fresh Dirt

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Posted by Sunset, August 1, 2010 in Containers , Edibles , Sustainable gardening , Techniques

By Johanna Silver, Sunset test garden coordinator

Move over new potatoes, it's time to see the finished product.

At Celebration Weekend I told approximately one million people that I would be able to just lift up the tower and have a ton of potatoes fall out, cascading gently onto my dinner plate.

So what happened? Are you on the edge of your seat?

Without further ado:

And: (Why can't I change it to be freeze-framed on some other part? I look like a gardener-zombie.)

We harvested 7.25 pounds of 'yellow finn' (including the ones I dug out as new potatoes), and 6 pounds of fingerlings.

It doesn't feel like a TON more than if they'd been planted in the ground, and tubers weren't necessarily growing UP the entire tower, as I'd hoped -- they were more concentrated in the bottom part. But I still didn't have to dig!

We have three towers left to harvest (one isn't even dead yet). I'll report back with harvest findings over overall conclusions shortly!

Posted at 10:31 AM in Containers, Edibles, Sustainable gardening, Techniques | Permalink

Comments

Funny how technology freezes on the best bits. Hey potatoes galore. Hum. I think next you need to try the old plant them down the sides like one of those 7 hole strawberry container pots...but with taters.

Posted by:Matti | August 03, 2010 at 02:05 PM

It seemed like they really didn't want to grow in the straw. Perhaps if they were planted in the tower method with added soil instead?

Posted by:Lynn | February 12, 2011 at 05:29 PM

I think adding soil is the best method. At the very least, that's what John Seymour recommends...

Posted by:Daniel | March 17, 2011 at 02:19 PM

I first saw this type of method in England,(National Vegetable Research Station), growing in the equivalent of plastic garbage bins (new ones). They topped off with soil instead of straw - the unveiling yielded 20-30lbs per bin. (I verified). I've tried several times here in the US - and have also been disappointed with the yield - about the same as Johannas. Both methods (Johannas & mine) did not appear to produce potatoes up the vertical height - just at the bottom. Need to do more research - and keep trying. Yours was definitely better visually :-)

Posted by:Howard | March 23, 2011 at 10:34 AM

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