A few weeks ago I was at the nursery to buy vegetables seedlings and I saw that they had potato seeds. I was looking at them when the owner approched me. I told him that it was the first year that I was growing potatoes because they take up a lot of room. But this year was the year. I really really wanted potatoes. He excitedly told me to come with me. He had something he wanted to show me. He has all sorts of edible stuff growing in raised beds around the nursery and he showed me a round wire cage he had made. He prepared the soil at the bottom, put the potato seeds in, covered with 4 in. of soil and compost. When the potato vine reaches 6 in. above the soil, put more soil (without covering the vine completely, leave about 1/3 of the vine uncovered) and repeat until the whole thing reaches 30 in. high. each time you cover the vine more potatoes will grow from the same plant.
We did it a little differently to make the harvesting of potatoes easier. We build an 18 by 18 in. frame and SCREWED planks on each side. As the vines will grow we will add planks and soil. And if we want to harvest potatoes from the bottom we will just unscrew the planks, take the potaoes we want and put back the planks. Supposedly you can grow 100 lbs of potatoes in an 18x18 wide, 30 in. high box. I hope it works well!
So easy a toddler can do it :)
No comments:
Post a Comment