It was the great white potato crate experimentation Charlie Brown ! If you drop any fourth dimension at all on Pinterest or Facebook – you have no doubt read the century of articles on how to grow your own potatoes vertically – in anything from a garbage can to a barrel or basket .
Our Solanum tuberosum crate experimentation – the potatoes develop in our crate in mid - summer
We have always grown our potatoes the more “ formal ” way – planted in our long raised rows of grease . However , always willing to try something new – we thought this twelvemonth we would give “ erect growing ” a stab and see what it is all about . We shout it the dandy potato crate experiment . Not ready to give up the proven results of the row method acting – we still planted our traditional rows – and then trialed a few crates to compare .
Our potato crate experiment – the potatoes growing in our crates in mid-summer
Before I go further – any of you who have grown spud know that they key is to keep filth mound around the tiptop of the flora . It can be tedious work at times – not to mention it can be difficult to find enough soil to keep mound up on the rows . However , with all of that say – in universal , we have always been happy with the results – normally netting about 5 to 8 pounds of potato for every British pound sterling we plant .
Our Potato Crate Experiment
It took minutes to lift the crateful and harvest the H.M.S. Bounty of potatoes !
We had built wooden grow crates from pallet a few old age back that we had sate with pale yellow bales and land to grow extra cucumbers , courgette and tomatoes against the garden fence.(See : How To Build Straw Bale Growing Crates)So for our potato experimentation this year- we used a few to try it out .
Planting …
It took minutes to lift the crate and harvest the bounty of potatoes!
Planting was as simple as filling the bottom of the crateful with a few inch of straw , parting and soil – and placing in our potato cuttings . We shroud them with soil and in a matter of minutes we were done . I have to say , it was much easier than the hoeing of the row for our stock potato wrangle plantings .
Although not large – we were able to implant 8 or 9 in each crateful
The straw Basle crateful were not large – in fact – we could only go about 8 to 9 cuttings at most into each – but at least we could get an musical theme if this really worked .
Although not large – we were able to plant 8 or 9 in each crate
As the season come along – we carry on to fill up the crates with a mix of soil , compost and straw until the potatoes had grown to the top . In our rows we did the same – hill up over the tater until we could hill up no more .
Harvest Time :
Around mid July – the tops of the potatoes in our wrangle were the first to brown off – signaling it was clip for prod . Although not horribly difficult workplace – it took us around 90 minute to harvest a doubled 50′ row . It was a decent harvest – about 2 to 3 bushel of medium sized potatoes . I do think the over abundance of rain and the cool weather condition this class defend down the harvest a second .
The purple potato harvest from the crates – big and bountiful!
tight fore a few weeks and it was meter to reap the crates as they began to brown off as well .
The royal white potato harvest from the crateful – openhanded and openhanded !
So there we stood – ready to find out just how well this growing experimentation would really operate . With a jolly easy lift of the crate – the loose soil came crumbling down – and with it – a one-half - bushel of potatoes came rolling out – most of which were much larger than any that had grown in our row . In what amount to a total of about 3 minutes – we had harvested the full content of the crateful . It was pretty easy to see that the crate tater – uprise in a much loose commixture of compost , chaff and soil were the achiever !
Next year – we will use larger crates that can stack up on each other for more vertical growing
All in all – we were both pretty astonished at the results . We figured if we had produce all of our potatoes the crate way – we could have had about 8x ’s the crop of the dustup method .
The futurity of our potato growing …
Next year – we will habituate larger crate that can pile up on each other for more vertical growth
In the small amount of sentence it have to plant our crate – and the ease in which it work throughout the time of year ( no weed , easy to lend soil – and mere harvest home ) – we will now grow all of our Irish potato next year above ground . It ’s far too simple and too easy not to do !
We will however make a few changes . Instead of get in the husk Basel crates we had on helping hand – we are run to ramp up a bit longer and shorter pallet crates that we can heap on top of each other as the potatoes grow – creating a larger crop . ( potatoes will retain to grow vertically as long as they are covered in soil ) We have two open sections at the top of our garden against the fence – and figure we can originate twice the potato we grew in the row with just these two area of crates .
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Happy horticulture ,
Jim and Mary Old World Garden Farms
