Potato towers success?

[Jared77]

Anybody doing this or have done it? I thought some folks have mentioned doing towers how did it work for you?

From what I've read you want to use a late variety so they keep growing up but that's really it. I had great success growing them in rows before, but if I can get success with a tower I'd be all about it and would open up space for more varieties of squash and some watermelons without expanding the bed. Plus I don't want to have to dig 2 more 60ft trenches for spuds. Trust me it gets old fast.

My hope is in the fall is so put down a tarp, pull the tower apart and harvest potatoes. Then the contents on the tarp are hauled back onto the compost pile and we begin again.

Is it really that easy?

 

[the1honeycomb]

I did potato towers my first year ever growing potatoes I got too excited and pulled them up early! I did get several pounds of potatoes and was happier but this year I will leave them in till the greens are dead. I have started planting them in the basement already so hope to get a jump on them let us know what you choose to do!

 

[Durgan]

There has never been a meaningful photo series on the internet showing a potato growing like or similar to as tomato plant. Plenty of babble and finger drawings, but nothing else.


http://www.durgan.org/URL/?QHBIN 21 August 2009 How a Potato Plant Grows
There is a great deal of information on the Internet about growing potatoes in tires, boxes and indicating that large quantities of new tubers can be produced with high vertical hilling. The view propagated is that potatoes grow from branches all along the main stalk. This is utter nonsense, as the pictures indicate. New tubers are formed around the seed potato and always slightly above it.

My potato growing test box was opened today. The pictures speak for themselves. Clearly there is no advantage in carrying out excessive hilling when growing potatoes. The purpose of hilling is to insure the tubers are covered, since light affects potatoes producing a green appearance, which is an indication of solanine, which is harmful if ingested in large quantities.. For comparison one Pontiac Red was dug in the same row, which was almost identical to the test box potato in appearance.

 

[lesa]

Wow, Durgan! Very nice comparison photos. Love that row of Brussels sprouts in the background! Personally, I have had much better results planting potatoes directly into the ground. I have found the idea of hilling the potatoes to be not all that important. One year I used hay, another I added a small amount of dirt to the top. I do trench them, and then at some point put the dirt from the sides on top of the plants- but my trench is no more than 4 or 5 inches deep. Jared, what about planting potatoes in the ground and trying your melons in containers?

 

[vfem]

Durgan I love the crow picture!!!!

I did this in buckets, but they were small and few. I trenched in my raised beds and that ended up with an impressive amount of potatoes last year, so that's how we'll do it again this year!

 

[Jared77]

You had an extra 1lbs of potatoes produced with the extra hilling is that per seed potato? Or how many seed potatoes?

Did you have any roots or root hairs along the portion of the plant that was buried?

Red Pontiacs are an early variety correct?

Lesa the problem with melons in containers is Id still have to trellis them or give them an area to expand out over. It crossed my mind to grow them vertically but thats a lot of reinforced trellisnig so I thought I might try going vertical with the potatoes and leaving the heavy vining plants to creep along the ground. I'm not sold on either idea honestly so I figured I'd bounce it off some folks here.

If we get the house we put an offer on (its been a week waiting on the bank holding the short sale to approve our offer) we'll have plenty of room I'm just trying to work smarter not harder. Plus I'd have an attached garage I could use as a root cellar for storage (which I didn't have before) so I will be able to expand my storage options.

I saw this set up http://growinglots.blogspot.com/2010/06/potato-towers-living-fence-posts.html which was what first gave me the idea. I wonder if allowing the plants to grow out the sides of the tower contributes to a better and bigger harvest since with the additional leaf growth.

I may have to try this in addition to in the ground to see if its worth it. Looks like they used hog fence to make their tower. If I can get similar production out of a tower that's ok. I don't expect to get better results but comparible is great.

Honeycomb when you built your towers was it with planks like Durgens or something different?

 

[Durgan]

A pound difference between potatoes grown in a row is not significient. I consider anything over four pounds per plant to be adequate. This depends a bit on the type. There are other considerations besides the total weight. Shape, smoothness, eye depth, texture, and size are also important. As to early, late,, it is of no importance to me, since I only get 125 days frost free so it is effectively all the same.

Tower crowding probably produces small potatoes. I think this is a better method, if space is at a premium.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?BKWAI 11 September 2010 Yukon Gold Test Box Potatoes
Yukon Gold Potatoes were harvested today. A total weight of 23.5 pounds was harvested from the 4 by 4 foot test area. The quality is excellent. Another plant could probably be placed in the center of the area without crowding. The average weight per plant was 5.9 pounds. From my experience anything over 4 pounds is acceptable.

For reference.
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?XWWLI 19 May 2010. Test to determine quantity by weight of four Yukon Gold potatoes.
A box 4 by 4 feet by 11 inches high was made in ideal soil and location to determine the quantity of potatoes by weight that can be produced. Each plant has about a foot on each side to insure minimum crowding of the root system. The seed potato was planted just below ground level and covered with soil about two inches on top.
Soil was placed in the corners for the first hilling. After the first hilling the growing plant will be covered adequately with bedding wood chips until the end of the season.

This test is to establish by weight the quantity, and size quality of potatoes that can be grown in a small space.
http://www.durgan.org/URL/?CZJZE 26 June 2010 Yukon Gold Potato Growth in 4 by 4 foot Test Box
The potatoes were hilled once and heavily mulched. A string was tied around the vegetation to keep upright. The premise being that the more vegetation exposed to the sun feeds the new tubers. This opposed to deep hilling and hiding the vegetation.

 

[Jared77]

Did you get an extra 1lbs per seed potato? Or did you get them per ___ft x ___ft area? Or per ___lbs of seed potatoes? 1lbs per seed potato is significant, 1lbs per 4' area is not. That's why I asked. From your photos it looked like you got an additional 1lbs per plant. If that's the case to me that is significant. If its not then please clarify it for me.

How many Red Pontiac seed potatoes did you use in the tower vs in the ground when you got the 1lbs difference? I didn't see what you started with and you didn't mention it that's why I'm asking.

You said

A pound difference between potatoes grown in a row is not significient.

How are you defining a row?

I think what your growing is the limiting factor more so than on how your growing them.

Taken from the University of Nebraska Website regarding Yukon Golds

Maturity -- early to mid season similar to Superior; determinate

Which right there says its a determinate variety so that may be why regardless of how grown your only getting so many lbs of potatoes. I don't know if the Red Pontiacs are determinate or not however that would explain your results with the Yukons.

And if

I consider anything over four pounds per plant to be adequate.

then your deep hilling made the difference as you produced 4.5 from the deep hilling method and claimed it was excellent yet when you just planted them in the ground 3.5lbs without the additional hilling.

Using our terminology you nonhilled potatoes are not adequate, yet your deep hilled potatoes are excellent. When I examined the pictures they looked similar in quality but its hard to gauge from a picture. Using your terminiology that you posted and you judged your own potatoes you graded both of them and didn't put in any additional comments to the quality so can we safely say they are all the similiar in quality?

I'm just trying to read between the lines given the info you put up. Its good stuff, and I appreciate you going to the trouble to take the pics and post them.

 

[Mickey328]

We tried this a couple of years ago and it went very well for a month or so. Then one day...all the plants were dead. We finally sussed out that they had "cooked" At about 5000 ft altitude, the sun here is very strong and with the roots raised, the soil just got so hot that we believe it killed them. We had even painted the boards white to help reflect. I believe we'll try again, but will rig up some sort of shade around the box so that just the top part gets the light. I think maybe if we keep a tarp around the box about a foot away from it, it may well help to keep that part shaded while allowing the tops to have the light. We'll have to build up the shade area as we build the box too, of course. If it doesn't work, we may just have to continue to buy our spuds.

We don't have adequate storage for many either, which is a pain. While we have a double attached garage and it's insulated, it gets beastly hot in there in the summer, and cold enough to freeze in parts of the winter. We do have a crawl space, and DH is in the process of digging down from the outside, we're not "there" yet. We're hoping to make a sort of root cellar out of it, so we'll have some area for storage of veggies, wine and various canned goods.

 

[Durgan]

When defining potato production I simply use the figure produced from one plant of one seed. Defining production using seed weight versus acre production is absolutely nonsensical, since a seed can be any size or weight. People have no idea regarding potato production. There is almost nothing on the internet regarding weight per plant unless I posted it.

I consider each plant to require one square foot of growing space. Very little if any tubers are produced outside this area. The new tubers are produced just above the seed potato and DO NOT GROW FROM PROTRUSIONS ALONG THE STEM.

I weigh each plants tubers as I dig them and now often just take the average for the area considered.

Hilliing is simply to keep the new tubers covered to prevent them turning green indicating the production of solanine. It contributes nothing to production.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?ZLDZE 15 September 2010 Viking Potatoes Harvested
The Viking is a beautiful white tuber. The yield per plant is low in number, but the tubers are quite large. This is a welcome addition to any garden. The yield is 33 pounds from nine plants.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?MNCMQ 15 September 2010 Alaska Sweetheart Potatoes Harvested
The tubers are small and the yield of 17 pounds from seven plants is low, but may be typical, but the potatoes are excellent quality, and are utilized whole as small potatoes. The tubers have a red ring tinge, which is rather attractive. They are amongst my favourites baked or boiled.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?ATRDM 15 September 2010 Agria Potatoes Harvested
Potatoes were harvest for Winter storage. This depicts the Agria, which is a fine quality potato. There was no damage with any of the potatoes and very few were discarded. They will be kept in a cold room, which is not ideal, but the best space available. About half the planted crop is depicted in the following series of four types, since the other half was utilized as required during the growing season. A total of 70 tubers were planted and 32 plants were left for winter storage.

http://www.durgan.org/URL/?FBQWE 11 September 2010 Russian Blue Potatoes.
Ten plants were grown and the average weight was 3.2 lbs per plant. The smallest yield was 2 lbs and the largest 5 pounds per plant. From previous years three pounds per plant is about normal for a good yield. I consider anything above 2 lbs per plant to be acceptable. The potatoes keep well. When boiled or baked the purple color remains. The texture is dense, and after accepting the color, the Russian Blue is a fine table potato. There was some damage from a bug, which I think is a squash bug.