Hey everyone, this has been an interesting experiment. About 2 months back at the beginning of winter I dug a hole in the ground around 800 cms deep. I then put in some nice compost and 3 sprouting potatoes.
I then covered the potatoes with around 5cms of soil. I cut a piece of plastic circular in shape and on an incline put it over the whole 'garden' and held in place with pot plants in plastic bags. I used meranti wood 'scaffolds' as the roof to keep the plastic from collapsing.
Around a month later the potatoes begin to bear leaves and pop out from the soil. I consulted my one mate who has previously grown potatoes and he advised me to cover the leaves, just leaving one leaf exposed to absorb sunshine.
Within a day or two the leaves again popped out, I covered them again and shall continue to do so. The more you build them up the more they produce, or so the theory goes. The big thing is generally from the research I have done is that frost kills leaves in Winter, if they are covered as I have, success should be imminent and to date, it looks rather promising.
The last question remains when is the right time to harvest? Apparently once these start flowering is when your Potatoes under the soil are mature, fully grown and ready to eat. I shall keep you all in the loop.
This really is working really nicely as a 'terrarium' keeping it nice and hot and humid inside during the day and frost off the leaves at night! Another benefit doing it this way is, you only need to water around twice a week, low water volumes are lost via evaporation and with a clear roof allowing for the right amount of sunlight to enter!
Nature the incredible! I trust you have an amazing day further.
Cheer$;)