Back in early April, I built 5 potato towers. The construction was simple. I used wire, dirt, straw and a few seed potatoes for each potato tower.
Fast forward about 5 weeks, and as you can see it was finally time to add a second layer to the potato towers.
To do this I simply added 4 inches of fresh garden soil inside the center of the wire frame. I then carefully packed more straw around the inside of the frame and then spread the dirt over the top of the potato foliage. I then placed 5 new seed potatoes on top of the fresh soil, and covered the seed potatoes with about 3 inches of soil.
Here is what the potato tower looked liked when I was finished.
Most likely, I will repeat this process two more times. Once in mid June, and again in mid July. Hopefully, by the end of August, or early September, I should be swimming in potatoes.
Yee-Haw!
Are you growing potatoes in towers this year? How is it going?
Go HERE to view the How to Build a Potato Tower post.
To learn more about growing up, instead of out, check out the book Vertical Gardening: Grow Up, Not Out, for More Vegetables and Flowers in Much Less Space
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Bonnie Hawkins says
We use to mix the horses manure into the garden, making the ground very soft. After watering my son would stick his hands into the mud and pull out potatoes. If the holes were bigger in your wire, you could harvest some new potatoes as needed.
Practical Parsimony says
How are you going to cover the plant that is outside the cage? Those are where the potatoes grow from. At least, that is my understanding.
Mavis says
Nope. I am only covering the inner part of the cage {with dirt} . I suppose if I really wanted to I could add an extra ring of wire, but I don’t think I will… unless I get really bored. I’m sure there will be plenty of potatoes to harvest from within the tower itself. 🙂
Dayla says
I would appreciate your advice….I planted my potato towers 2 wks ago & I don’t see anything!! how long before you saw plants growing? thx!
Mavis says
How much dirt did you use {in inches} to cover your seed potatoes?
Dayla says
I put down an inch or so of awesome dirt, then planted the potatoes on top of the dirt. While they were seed potatoes from the nursery that I had bought that day, I didn’t let them “sprout” before starting to plant…but they did have “eyes” on them. Then I covered with a couple of inches of dirt plus 4 inches of straw on top & around sides. Tried to make them look like your potato towers! How soon after planting did you see plants? Maybe I just add more dirt & plant more seed potatoes?? Thanks for your help, Mavis!!!
Kari says
When you build a potato tower out of tires, you just add more dirt as the plants grow. I’m curious why you are adding more potatoes as you add the dirt. I’ve always wanted to have a potato tower, but I couldn’t stand having a pile of tires in my backyard. If you have to keep adding more potatoes to your towers what is the benefit vs growing them in the ground. I just got my seed potatoes this weekend and I’m trying to decide how I want to plant them. Thank you so much for all your gardening wisdom:-). I have completely changed the way I normally plant my garden and so far I’m loving it.
Mavis says
These potato towers are 4 feet tall. So, when all is said and done, they will likely be about 5 feet tall when the foliage is at it’s peak. I’m not sure that I need to add more seed potatoes, but I do have OCD… so we can blame it on that. 😉
Andrea says
Those look like they will be nice looking while waiting for potatoes. I have done potatoes in a bag before. It is the same type of planting/growing as you have here but we dont plant more seed potatoes when we add more soil. We got several pounds of potatoes from just 3 seed potatoes.
Danny says
Just wondering, how did you harvest?
All same time, or you harvested from below? (I was thinking the potatoes under – which formed first would be much bigger and more mature than those that formed after adding more soil/dirt/compost)
Heather says
Dumb question, but where do you get seed potatoes? Couldn’t I just use the ones at the market that I can cut in quarters? I was thinking this would be a good project this weekend….
Mavis says
Typically you will be fine. You just have to watch out for potato growers that use a growth-inhibitor spray. If you are using organic potatoes you should be fine. Then again I’ve used potatoes that were not organic and they worked fine too. 🙂
Marcia says
Heather: You can generally buy seed potatoes where seeds are sold. I’ve even seen them at Walmart and Meijer in their garden supply department.
Rachel says
I went the trashcan route this year – my yard is pretty small and I only have three raised beds. It’s great that I can move the potato crops around if I need to as the season progresses.
Danny says
I have been researching deeply on this method of ‘continuous’ potato growing.
But there is one area no one seams to answer:
Being that the first layer is planted some 5 weeks before the second layer (and so on), what happens during harvesting time ?
Doesnt it mean the ones planted first will definitely do better (and bigger) than those planted 5 weeks (or so) later?
Have we thought about staggered harvesting? – This means harvesting “from below”
Shea says
What time of year do I start my potato tower?
Mavis Butterfield says
I usually start mine in early April here in the PNW.