Potatoes have been a staple for Centuries.
And with good reason! They're dead simple and, unlike some crops, they have weight, easily filling your belly. Plus, they're good in almost everything!
We have tried to grow potatoes a few times..
Last year we stuck them everywhere we could find the space to.
We had high hopes, but while we got potatoes out if it, I think we burned more calories trying to dig them up then they held!
The dirt was rock hard and what potatoes we did recover were more often then not damaged in some way from the struggle it took to extract them..
SO..
This year I tried something different..
Potato Towers!!.... and one re purposed, rusted out wheel-barrow..
at the time of me writing this, we had not yet attempted to harvest any of them. I have some excitement, true, but the kind you get when opening a Dirty Santa gift a Christmas.. It may be awesome! But it also may not.. whether we fail or succeed, I'll share the results.
All the wood used was scrap. There was some slight cost in screws, staples, and plastic (unscented trash bags.)
But the main and staggering cost came from the dirt!
I'm not interested in robbing Peter to pay Paul, and while the thought of collecting dirt here and there on the homestead sounded great, it was short lived. We need to be building our soil. Bringing in as much here as we can. So i payed for the dirt, a combination of topsoil, peat moss, and some manure. And it wasn't cheap!!
I was able to justify this only because were going to add the soil left after harvesting into the new garden, by the house, that we will be working on this fall/winter. So even though I wanted to get it for less, we're at least going to be putting it all to good use.
We did not go with the vine type potato tower idea where you plant a few at the bottom and bury the same plant over and over.
Instead we did layers of potatoes, adding soil to them occasionally.
So where did we get the potatoes??
Most were given to us by my my sister-in-law who found them at our local transfer station (trash place.) But some were, and usually are, just plain ole' potatoes that have been forgotten.. We do not buy seed potatoes.
Even the ones she brought us this year were just some old lady's potatoes that had gotten really old and grown long shoots.
So here we go!
All in all, I think the system is sound. The potatoes we did get were easy to collect!
Four screws and we were in! It looks like the white potatoes did poorly... And by poorly I mean diddly squat! Just because they have eyes, doesn't mean that they will grow.. But they were free and we still have all the dirt. And the towers are in good enough shape to use for another two years at least! As such, there was no money lost in the venture!
What's more, all these red potatoes came from but 4 or less "seed" potatoes... AKA what was left in a bag we bought last year. Next year we will get some more potatoes from our local Go-Grocery store. They seemed to do very well last year.
Even though the results were a little disappointing.. I'm not upset..
I'm glad for any lesson learned. At our next homestead we may be much more reliant on these than we are now.
At our next place we will probably be much more off grid and have needs greater then here so I want to learn all these lessons here while I can.
Cant wait to try it all again next year!
Stay tuned for the rest of our tower harvests...
-'The Digger'