POTATO TOWERS

[Old chef]

Hello All

I have read a lot about potato towers. Does anyone have any advise?

Old Chef

[JRinPA]

Where are you?

Too hot for them here, I think. Too hot and too dry for long periods. I tried something a couple ways a few years back with no success to speak of. I do much better right in the ground.

Potatoes did pretty well for me in a 1 ft raised box of compost but they took a lot of water, even though the roots did reach the ground.

[brownrexx]

I only grow them in the ground. I have a friend who tried them in large pots with trellises last year and hardly got any potatoes.

[Old chef]

Ok Thank you for the input. In the ground it is!

Old Chef

[JRinPA]

Hey Old Chef are you still looking for potato tower info? I'd love to see one work out for you.

That year I tried three different vertical ways - two barrels and a built up wall. The two barrels grew somewhat and then rotted in a heavy rain period. I had cut windows into one barrel and planted spuds next to openings and back filled it from the top. I don't recall any potatoes growing "out the windows" like envisioned. They just grew up the open center. The second barrel I had sectioned into thirds and started with the bottom section only, then put on the middle section and continued to backfill, then the top. The idea was to have potatoes set throughout. Soon after I put on the top section of that one, it was very hot and I watered both well. Soon after we had a hot humid rainy week, and practically the entire barrel rotted.

The walled up bed area still looked great and loved that same rain. But upon harvest it was found to be almost completely eaten out by voles. The potatoes only set in the very bottom, nothing above the initial growth that was "hilled" over.

The next year, a 1 ft deep box grew them well but voles were in there too. Luckily they preferred the sweet potatoes in the same box. That year I also grew in ground in just a raised row with black mulch over them, and they made larger potatoes with less watering. But the voles found some there too.

Last year I planted in rototilled ground with just the initial hilling up, uncovered, and they did well enough that way.

The idea of a tower of some sort sounds great for space saving and easy harvest, so I wish you luck in finding good plans and trying it. The best bet might be to do some in the ground and some in a tower. According to youtube, some people do make them work.

[Old chef]

Hello Jr in PA
Thanks for your feedback I decided to put in another bed where I can specifically amend the soil to make it conducive for Potatoes. This is my first go with potatoes but we are famous here for Long Island Potatoes.

Fingers crossed
Old Chef( Cause I am)

[brownrexx]

I have never been a fan of trying to grow potatoes any other way than in the ground where they were intended to grow.

I think that in-ground gives the best results and other methods should only be used if in-ground is not possible.

[JayneR13]

I've grown potatoes both in-ground and in containers, and have had both success and failure with both methods. It might be useful to know that potatoes come in both determinant and indeterminant varieties. While this doesn't matter to the tubers themselves, it does affect things like maturation time and how they're grown. Here's one guide: https://dengarden.com/gardening/determi ... e-potatoes

Indeterminant potatoes are larger, longer producing plants that will spread out better in-ground, while determinants are early to mid season maturing plants that do better in containers. Both will work and sometimes both will fail. Last year I grew Magic Mollys and Adirondack blues in containers. I doubled my weight but both varieties rotted while curing, leaving me with nothing. OTOH I've had decent results with Elfe and red Norlands, both of which being my go-to varieties for both raised bed and container gardening. I believe that one of my problems in the containers last year was the soil. It was garden soil, not container soil, and was just too heavy. All my containers produced last year was a great education in plant pathology, including my potatoes. Other years using Miracle Gro potting soil and fertilizing often, I've produced 30 lbs of potatoes easily from just a couple of containers. It CAN be done. If that's what your space dictates I'd go for it! Here's another reference that might help.

https://www.planetnatural.com/growing-p ... ontainers/

[rossomendblot]

Due to lack of space for growing them in the ground, we grow potatoes in containers every year. They are more effort to plant but less effort to harvest. Last year we got 11 lbs of maincrop Cara from each 50 Litre container, even though I didn't manage to keep the containers consistently watered due to a very hot (by our standards) summer. Usually the growing medium is a mixture of manure, coffee grounds, unfinished compost and potting mix from the previous year, plus additional fertiliser. One trick some people use is to slightly bury the containers so that the potato roots can go out of the container holes and in to the soil, looking for extra nutrition and moisture.

[JRinPA]

I just planted a row today. Last fall's cabbage row was covered over the winter and was in beautiful shape. So I lifted the cover and forked and rototilled it deeply. Raked and planted potatoes using a fork to pry a hole open and quickly push a potato in there before the dirt backfills it. Not real hard, but I know it will take some digging to harvest.

Now I just saw this video of grow bag potatoes.
I have plenty of seed leftover so in the next row I think I will do that method with either fabric bags or garbage bags. The bags in the video are 42 gal 3 mil contractor bags.

And I may well go back and put another layer of seed down on the inground row as well. Maybe half the row, to compare. What that guy makes a lot of sense. Why not two layers in the same inground hill?

My big concern as always is voles- are they going to bite right through and infest the bags? Or up the holes? I'd love to be able to expand and load all the comments on a youtube video so that they can be text searched. Does anyone by chance know a way to do that?

[JRinPA]

It took a lot of expanding the comments to search but after a few minutes, there was mention of voles. Specifically, that the person commenting might try this because voles always destroy their in-ground potatoes.

Another interesting comment said that the long sprouts are "Light Searchers" and are all wrong, that you want chits, so he should break off those hollow tubes and put the potato in sunlight for a couple weeks to form chits, and for big potatoes, less chits per potato.

I planted potatoes that looked like that last year and I thought they did pretty well. Well enough that I just planted more like that today. Seems I got more potatoes that way then the original seed from a few years back that had only chits? A lot were small, but there were quite a few.

Anyway, I like to experiment a little each year so I may try this or similar.

[GoDawgs]

@JRinPA , a thought popped in. Do you think a collar of hardware cloth around the bottom of a potato bucket (covering the holes) deter voles?

[JRinPA]

That would probably work, I guess. If I was buying new stuff, I'd get 1/4" grid just to be sure some young ones don't slip though the 1/2" grid.

This evening I went and planted a second, shorter row of Lehigh identical to yesterdays planting. The bags might well work, but they would take more water and are a bit unsightly. Might be too hot for here, anyway. Plus with potatoes in the ground, I can consider bush beans or corn over top of them.

[AKgardener]

Has anyone tried to grow taters in a 5 gallon bucket?? Inside or out ? I’m trying it as soon as my taters get eyes doing inside this fall

[JRinPA]

We tried dollar tree baskets lined with weed fabric, very spotty outside production. I currently have 2 fabric pots going that look good. But I never tried a plastic bucket.

[AKgardener]

I have 5 gallon grow bags but inside watering might be a bit messy I think