We planted our “tater tower” Kennebec potatoes on May 22nd of this year and harvested today – Oct. 8th (~ 4 1/2 months from sowing to harvest). Here is a photo journal of the process of taking it down. But first, lessons learned:
- Planting about 3 lbs yielded a little over 10 lbs. Hate to admit it, but this is *pathetic*. We should have gotten at least 6X, ideally 10X. Here’s a Gardenweb discussion on potato yield. However, we got some really nice large ones, unlike those we planted on the ground.
- We think some potato seeds rotted in the middle and never made it out to develop plants. Wondering if we should make the tower wide and skinny next year, and packing the straw less tightly to let the plants grow easier through the wire mesh. We found most of the potatoes along the perimeter of the tower.
- Clay + sand = bricks. We thought the sand would loosen the clay (doh). We will not make that mistake next year! The whole idea of building the tower was to reduce the strain of bending over & digging for potatoes, and minimizing casualties (spade stuck in potato). But there was still too much clay in this structure. We were cheap and did not use enough of the topsoil, nor did we buy seed potatoes especially suited to clay soil.
- We could have planted twice or even thrice as many potato seeds in this configuration – so next year, we’ll have a denser planting.
Potato tower in the height of summer - July 18th
Tater tower right before dismantling wire walls - Oct. 8th
Pulling apart wire walls of potato tower
Demolishing potato tower was not as easy as we thought
There's gotta be a potato in here somewhere ...
Here's one!
More good-sized golden potatoes
Potatoes liked to grow along perimeter of tower
Tater tower halfway demolished
Basket was full but not brimming over with potatoes
Found 3 frogs in our tower - sorry but you'll have to find another place to live!
Here’s a quick video:
I tried growing potatoes in an oak barrel this year, in a lightweight but nutrient-rich mixture of compost and peat moss. We covered the tops of the plants as they grew up. Barely yielded 2 pounds of potatoes; it was very disappointing.
Hi Dave – yep, we tried same in large plastic bins one year. We never seem to get yields you read about in Gardenweb. Are those guys for real? Sounds like you had the perfect soil mix.
Well, you’ve done better than we did! We didn’t plant the right kind of potatoes for “towering” this time around. Next year, though, I think we’ll try a different approach and try to go with a tower rather than just throwing a few into the planter box.
Garrett – do share your pics next yr. We were so rushed this yr, didn’t have time to select spuds carefully. We’ll be better prepared for next yr. Wife complains abt all that time she watered the tower in the searing heat for a measley harvest of 10 lbs!
What kind of potatoes would be better? I grew some in stacked tires filled with compost and composted horse manure with some straw mixed in when we lived in Michigan. I was hoping to prevent accidentally growing potatoes in the same place two years running. I’d like to do it again here in Tokyo, so I’m curious for more detail. Great post, by the way. Really useful pictures and good detail on what you’d like to do differently. Thanks!
I found your blog through Twitter. Like the looks of it and have bookmarked for further reading and reference.
Sheree
Hi Joan – the variety of potatoes also has a lot to do with your soil type and climate. I’m not sure what would grow well in Tokyo. Do expatriates there have a gardening club or can you find out from local gardening clubs? We ourselves are trying to figure out the best varieties to grow as a tower, and we haven’t done the research yet. What we do know is that these Kennebecs ARE delicious! We’ve also grown purple varieties but while even more delicious than Kennebecs, they don’t grow as large. Thanks for commenting and best of luck to your patch!
Hi Sheree – thanks for looking in
We have enjoyed these potatoes since we knocked it down and will try it again next year with less clay soil and giving it more of a nitrogen boost to see if that increases yield.
Is there any information or research on types of potato that do best in a tower? I have grown some before and had less than wonderful results. The potatoes I threw on the compost pile did better than my tower experiment.
Hi Larry – no, we haven’t found that info yet. I think taters do better in looser, rich soil (as in your compost heap), and our tower was possibly too dense for the leaves to break through. There are varieties that will do well in more clay-like soil, but our best harvests were in rich soil, growing in raised beds. We’ll report back later in 2011
this is so interesting!!
i’ve never heard of potato towers before.. is this possible to do in the backyard..?