I think this is one of the best TH-cam videos I’ve seen in my brief time watching them. You gave background info, showed the entire harvest in an efficient way, explained what you found, and summarized and analyzed at the end. As a result, I learned a lot from your experience! Thank you so much!
Yes, thank you for posting a "failure" on youtube. Often there's just success stories on here and then you feel like an idiot when something seemingly so simple doesn't work for you.
Potatoes require slightly acidic soil to grow well. They also require loose moist soil, where yours looked pretty dry. The deal with towers is because they are exposed on all sides, they tend to dry out easily. Next time try adding hay or grass clippings to help keep things loose and moist, but you still have to water the towers a lot. Good luck with your next round!
i grow potatoes in my backyard every, year round im zone 9a corpus christi,tx. I use potato crates that i made out of produce crates that you get at the produce market as well as meat markets they toss them out after they stock their produce... I cut the bottome out of 2 crate & stack them on top of one crate that still has the bottom on it.... I zip tie them all together & line them with weed barrier...... I fill 3-4 inches with potting soil mix with peat moss including compost that I make in my backyard I also add in warm castings from my worm farm then...... I place 6 potatoes in the crate then i fill soil up 2ft my plants always make it to the top & still have a ft left to add on more soil if needed....I place crates in full sun & water once every 3days or when soil is dry 5 inches down my largest harvest from doing this method was 62 potatoes in one potato crate my largest potato was 2lbs.... i normally grow red norland potatoes being they are my favorite well last yr i also grew Texas baking potatoes my largeat potato was almost 4lbs!... I got 29 potatoes from that crate....I was very excited....now the only reason i grew my potatoes this way was because i lived in an apartment & was short on room so i wanted to see if it was possible to grow them in containers I'm not sure why mine grow well,but i like to share my story & see if it may help others....I now own my own house,but i still grow my potatoes the same way in crates. I find using light soil allows the potatoes room to grow.
Stephanie Wallace It would be great if you made a video and tagged me in it, I garden with my kiddos and we are always looking for space friendly projects
thank you for taking the time to share this experience, most people only show their success and not their not so nice ressults, but we all learn from our or other people mistakes, would you consider adding some amendments on the potato growing soil?, I have grown potatoes in pots, and they are very greedy plants, I saw you have some goats, their manure and the wasted hay I beleive would be great addition as nitrogen and carbon source... I would also fertigate with diluted urine regularly for nice large plump potatoes...
Thank you for the comment. I have definatly learned some good improvements since I have posted this video. I will have to see how it goes when I try the experiment again in the future.
Thank you for your honesty. I watched another clip that did a similar tower using straw, compost, water and she did not post the results. I guess your video and your explanation shows why.
Thank You for your time. Nice video. I have seen this happen before. It was caused by something i have yet to see in your comments. I believe the real trouble you had is that you planted early season potatoes . Try it again with late season potatoes. The plant last much longer. You admitted that the growth was stifled , short lived (early season variety). Towers require late season varieties to be successful. The longer plant life allows for a lot more tubers. Just my opinion, but you can look it up. Hope this helps, and i would like to see you do this again.
Hi, I used to cover my potatoes with hay as they grew! Got bigger potatoes I thing because there was not so much weight on them. hay holds good moisture well too. Will breakdown during growing season. Good luck! New potatoes at any size, fresh dug doesn't get any better!.
If you grew the potatoes in a large and deep container made of plastic (or non-porous material) with better and nutrient rich soil that holds a lot of moisture (something like equal parts compost, garden soil with some vermiculite and peat moss), and not made of wood, hays, papers with poor dry soil, I think you would achieve much better yields, as potatoes need a lot of moisture to do well (but well drained soil so always drill some holes on the bottom of the container or potatoes would rot). The tower with hays like that will dry out the soil very quickly, and more often you water to make up the dry condition, more nutrient in the soil will be drained out of the tower, leading to poorer soil condition, even if you started with ok soil. This was a good experiment to see what the yields would look like in a dry and not very rich soil, which potatoes don't really like.
Dude, I just harvested one 5 gallon bucket and was able to get half of what you did. Like others have said that soil looks really bad. On getting water in the middle I would make the soil concave down so the soil runs to the middle and then out to the sides.
Thanks for the great and honest video and taking the time and how you ended it... I appreciate your restraint for not replying to all the comments with the questions and remarks about the kind of soil and dryness (as you let the soil dry well before harvesting) that were answered in a few other comments... I plan to try to grow some food this year. Keep up the good work and have a good one
I really appreciated your honest video. I have tried the tower and building up the potato plant to a higher level with little or no success. Next I will just try straight in the ground with a good mix of soil.
Hopefully I can do a better experiment in the future. Until then, I still think the traditional method is best. I wish you the best on your next potato crop!
Good video, I think I will use a pot! I learned a lot from your experiments. My best potatoes are usually from pots. I tried the tower, but we were semi rural at that time, backing onto a reserve. The water rats burrowed under the tower and ate all my potatoes on the vines whilst still underground, the plants were fine. I pulled out the tops to 10% bits left with ratty bites. Plastic bins after that with irrigation & rat traps in the veggie garden!
+JustG I have have a few people comment about my soil. I do agree that it isn't the rich dark garden soil that many gardeners dream of having, but it is the same soil that grows the famous Idaho potatoes. My potatoes that I grew in the traditional hills grew just fine in the same type of soil. I am curious, do you grow potatoes in towers? If you do, have you had better luck with a looser soil?
+Simple Ground while I am not a video artist such as yourself I have grown potatoes and other root crops successfully using several different planting methods. I would like to challenge you to try something different. Plant your towers again but prepare the soil by adding compost, straw, sand, grass clippings, leaves, and any other natural improvements which are available to you. Compare those results with the results in this video and I am sure you will not only get larger potatoes but many many more potatoes.
+JustG Than you for your reply. I planning on doing the experiment again. I will probably have an amended soil tower in the mix. my real doubt, the reason I tried the towers, is that growing potatoes in a tower is a good idea at all. No matter the soil. I personally feel that the energy of the potato plant can go either to the potato or the vine and it may as well go to the potato. That is why I was asking if you have had any success in growing potatoes in a tower. I am not yet a believer.
+Jared Neibaur I did have success with several different types of towers. Stacking tires to plant in was the least successful and I suspect the reason being less air flow. I did a wood box stack similar to yours and that was a bit more successful. My most successful was a rather large burlap sack which I put around rebar posts. The conclusion I came to was the more airflow the better results. The looser the soil the better results. The more nutrients in the soil the better results. Now when ever I plant any kind of root crops I make sure there is plenty of composted material.
Wish you'd of had better luck. We've got plenty of land but have grown them for about 30 years in an old tire stack just for fun. We use straight compost, with some perlite, vermiculite, & peat moss. And rabbit poop. Usually get about 100 - 125 pounds to a stack. Caution - gotta have a indeterminate late season variety, and leave about a foot to two feet of green each time you add soil. And keep it moist. It'll work - I wouldn't stop trying. Good luck - glad I found your channel.
Impressive for sure. I too have started growing in containers. I'm using a bigger planter, but I will have more to plant in 5 gallon buckets. An idea I will use for nest year.
When growing in the ground, I've learned to limit the direct sunlight on the surrounding soil of the potatoes, by using straw around them om the hill. I know you use that in the making of this tower. But In growing other things, like Tomatoes in a topsey turvey, one problem we have was the soil would dry out so quickly, and nutrients would be used up. So, I learned that with any kind of tower arrangement, I had to limit sun exposure, or else the soil dries too much. With your experience, do you think a place that gets 4 to 6 hrs morning sun, but is shaded the rest of the day, would do better? I've never tried this with potatoes as you have, just wondering about that.
I have made growing barrel towers and they all failed until I layered the tower with soil then straw then soil then straw all the way up. This way when I watered the tower the straw retained some moisture. I did not use that system on potatoes but on greens. It worked well.
Enough said about the soil. I am not sure, but did you pick the right kind of seed potato? Here in Germany for instance I would use a late potato. It continues to grow throughout summer, then in early fall it starts turning yellow and brown and this is when you start harvesting. I could imagine that if you used an early kind, that growing season is over too soon and your harvest is around the base of your tower only. I don't know your climatic situation, but this is what it looks loke to me. Your tower with the wooden boards is only half the height it should be. That seems like another indicator to me that you might have chosen the wrong potato for your experiment.
+Anton Chigurh I'm going to try again this coming season at my new homestead. It has darker soil that is sure to make people happy. I'll also try a different potato. I do want to defend my soil again though. I know it doesn't look like the rich black stuff that is often found in garden books or the like. This same soil grows the famous Idaho potatoes plus I had a great crop of potatoes in my traditional rows in the exact same soil.
Simple Ground : Right, that's why I didn't want to "pick" on the soil like almost everyone else. Of course you let it dry before you harvested. I have no doubt that you had been watering enough before. The wooden boards on the right side indicate that. I really appreciate your reply and I wish you "tons" of potatoes ( do you say spuds??) on your next try. Being the "smart a.." that I am it would give me the opportunity to say:"Ha! So it DID take a different potato. I was right all along", lol....hmmm,..... if only you wouldn't change the soyl at the same time.....DANG! ;D
+Anton Chigurh I appreciate the comment. And thanks for being a good sport. Not much I can do about the soil change but hopefully my next trial is more telling. I have talked to a few people who say they have had genuine success with a potato tower and one of them convinced me that I should use a different potato. I'll do my best to get better results this next time.
I've grown potatoes successfully in 5 gallon buckets with holes drilled in the bottom and sides. For a regular sized potato only one per bucket and for fingerling you can do 3-4 per bucket. I put 3 inches of good soil, vermiculite and perilite mixed. I put potato slips in then cover with 3 more inches of soil. When plants get to about 6-7 inches tall I cover stem with soil but I leave 2-3 inches of plant sticking out of the dirt. If you cover them all way, you will get the results you had. Hope you try again and have success :)
+justmeinflorida Thank you for this info. This is the stuff that I hope to have in my comments. Just to be clear for anyone reading. In my box type tower I did only cover my potatoes as you described, leaving 2-3 inches. I just did it multiple times throughout the summer. The circular tower I planted all at once, with potatoes throughout, hoping the potato vines would find their way out the sides as they grew.
+Simple Ground In your box type tower did you stop adding soil at some point? When my buckets get to around two inches from the top I stop adding soil. I let the plant grow out from there. They're usually 2-3 feet above the bucket before they die off and are ready to harvest. I wait a week after complete die off before I harvest. I fertilize once half way through their growth and lightly water probably once a week unless the soil gets to dry then I'll water more often.
That's how I'm growing mine. Last year my soil was too dense and they did poorly. Now I used compost, vermiculite, pet moss, sand and a little liquid fertilizer and most of mine in the buckets are doing well.
+Dave Cannon I'm pretty sure I used russets and I've now found that they aren't the best choice for potato towers. I'm planning to start a new tower this spring and I'm still looking for a better potato.
We're they early or late potatoes? Supposed to be late potatoes so they'll fill up the tower. The early ones stay on the bottom (Just saw that info on another video.)
My first reaction was, "The soil is so dry!" Then I wondered, "Why didn't he explain what kind of plant food (fertilizer, compost, etc.) he used?" So I appreciate very much that you did all this work to make a still very interesting experiment, there are important details missing. After reading many of the comments below, I realize that many other people were thinking the same thing as I was. One thing obvious to me is that such tower geometries run the risk of dry soil simply because of the fact they have so much surface area exposed to the drying air, and that they should require more frequent watering than do conventional methods. As you mentioned, a drip watering system should be a big help, as would giving the potatoes something to eat. When you say it's the same soil that is used to grow Idaho potatoes, again, do you mean that commercial farmers use only soil, with no added potato food? Even with the rich loam soils we have here in New Jersey, we still have to add some kind of plant food, otherwise we're only playing in the dirt. Which for some of us is maybe the biggest reward.
Orrab Mas Thanks for sharing your breakdown of the situation. I'll try my best to answer. I think that you are right about the geometry causing more drying. I also think that a looser soil would allow for more water penetration. And yes, when I say it's the same Idaho soil, I mean that it is the same soil that the farmers plant their potatoes. They do feed it what it needs, multiple times a year, as you well understand. My point is, if you looked across my fence into the neighbor's potato field it would "look" like the same pale soil in this tower video and not the loose black soil that everyone sees in a regular garden book. It is hard to tell soil nutrition only by looking at it. That is why we have soil test. I hope that clarifies some of it. I do want to try the experiment again sometime though. I live in the Pacific Northwest now, we will have to see how it works here. I'll do a better job of feeding it. Thanks again.
i read comments , yes i think some mistake or irregularity in irrigation , either too much at once that compacted the soil then lack of it that made it hard dry , try adding more compost and constant moisture .
Not sure if anyone noted in the comments or if you've learned in the meantime but apparently there are two types of potatoes, determinant and non-determinant, and only the non-determinant will really grow much roots up higher if doing a tower or anything vertical, might not have been the right type just fyi.
Interesting video. Thanks. I was thinking irrigation from the moment you started, because there was dust (dried topsoil) blowing around every time you moved and the towers seemed very dry. Also, because they're raised, these drain very well (or too well since you need more water, I think). So, in the ground wouldn't be subject to drying out. In a similar vein, I've been making raised beds, but I recently made a sunken bed - dug out of clay, and filled with finished compost. This might not be good for something that is easily drowned (the clay holds the water like a pond), but for starting seedlings, it seemed to work well. Anyway, I was wondering if there was some way you could build these closer to the house - it looks green over there, and maybe incorporate some runoff from the down spouts. Seems like if you just directed the downspout into the tower that would be way too much water. But maybe have a little pond from the downspout and put the tower next to it, or, maybe in the ground would be better. I've heard potatoes like water. I'm about to try planting potatoes, pretty much for the first time, I threw some in a hugel culture before and they did okay. I'm pretty inexperienced but gung ho, so I was checking out videos. I might put mine next to a pond and manually bail water out and drop it in the tower. Too much work, but can't think of an easier way really quickly. Maybe I'll do a sunken bed, that could definitely suck up water from the down spout without my doing anything and start hilling up over it.
I enjoyed your video despite the poor crop you obtained. You have a nice manner and for once this is a video without an irritating music track, I appreciate that. I'm weighing up whether next season to build towers or a bag-in-a-bucket system. The argument for container grown veg is that you can fit a lot of plants into a small yard, and some people show surprisingly large harvests from this method. But in the ground removes the need for most watering. Thanks again, and subscribed.
Thank you. I have seen a couple convincing videos about successful potato crops in towers since I posted this video. I still have some doubts that I need to test and put to rest so I will be trying this again next year. If you add a hollow tube with holes in it you may be able to have an easier time watering. Best of luck.
Great video and thanks for your video. I grow potatoes in a potato tower, barrels, and grow bags and what I think you're missing is rich, nutrient-rich soil with compost and other good stuff. Your soil looks like fill dirt.
I have a wooden potato tower also. The kind of potato that grows there the best is the Elba. This is an indeterminant potato. That kind of potato grows continuously up the vine.You may want to give those a try. They produce a large potato.
Want variety of potato did you plant? Determinant or indeterminant? Determinant only grow one layer of tubers. Indetermenent will keep adding another layer of them on the stems as long as you keep piling up the hill.
hey man might try add straw and leaves and compost. look lot clay soil. i try old tires method. what did fill bottom 2-3 tires with straw/ compost leaves, top 2 tires filled potting soil from store put potato slips at top. give try see what happens. be carful not get dirt in rim tire don't potatoes grow in there not able get out break them but easily do that bored as well won't have same problem i had i work what got.
Simple Ground 9.5" and 4000' - ouch! That's pretty hostile. How deep did you need to sink your well to get water, or are you blessed by a good catchment?
I've had the same experience with the bails too. The next year I gave them more water getting twice the amount but still I had more success just growing them in the ground.
Use sawdust for soil and pour a manure tea over the plantings a couple of times during growth. Plant in sawdust several seed taters and cover with sawdust. When the leaf and vine grow above the level about three inches, cover them again in sawdust and repeat thereafter. by the time you have the tower filled there will be multiple levels of potatoes.
Your right about the energy being use up from the tuber. Try it with straw on top and a light amount of compost or fertilizer dusting and keep adding straw every couple days. Needs to be light. Otherwise it won't be easy for the vine to grow through and you will lose the vigorous early growth. Also, keep it watered because it's above ground.
Hey Simple Ground. I think the potato tower is one of those memes that gets over-hyped. I highly recommend you look at Curzio Caravati's work at the Kenosha Potato Project, (google it or look on FB, if I link I find they usually think a post is spam), Curzio has been testing hundreds of varieties for growing in grow-bags, which is a similar technique, and he has a pretty good handle on what results you can realistically expect. In a nutshell, there is a upper yield limit for a potato plant, and you cannot actually go much above that limit no matter what you do. This is also something I've seen Walter De Jong (potato breeder at Cornell University say in some webinars, which you can find on TH-cam. Good video you've got here.
It seems to me, you might not have used the optimal variety of potato. You need to make sure to use a "late" potato. The early ones only grow new tubers for a short amount of time, where as late varieties tend to keep growing new tubers into the new layers of soil and you end up with potatoes all along the "vine".
I agree with earlier comments if you had better soil as well as the drip line you would have had more success. my boss tried the same thing but in a barrel with too much clay and it wasnt very successful although he added miracle grow it he had tomatoes on top and they were all fighting for the food. and the water couldnt get to the center. Was perfect for the ants that moved in though. made it even more disappointing digging through them! please try again with a few diffrent soils and fertilisers in sepperat towers maybe three of each! Thanks for the video!
It wasn't the tower that is disappointing, it's you bud. The soil was compact and didn't contain enough compost. Did you check the soil ph to make sure it's acidic enough?
I am greatly appreciative of the work you put into this video. I agree with Parrots park, maybe layer with sawdust, sand and/or straw. Just a thought. Thanks!
If you can get it, try the "Red Emalie" this ist e special kind for this experiment, because ist makes potatoes from ground to top. best wishes for a new experiment!
I was under the impression you were supposed to let the vine grow shoots before planting the next layer of potatoes. This might help fix the issue of the bottom potatoes not producing.
I thought your second harvest looked quite good until I noticed your hand. LOL. Fingerlings. I dug up a potato plant last week that had marble sized potatoes on it. I planted it back again. Rodents or something eat all my potatoes, anyway.
hey bud I liked watching this I did notice you had soil that wasn't very good draining soil sandy soil hey amongst the soil or even wood shavings will help your potatoes grow easier, and lots of deep watering until it is getting close to harvest
+Erin Morris Yes actually. I grew a lovely garden that year. The potatoes grown in the the traditional rows grew normally. It is funny how much advice I seem to get about my soil.
+Erin Morris I haven't said I This often because most people don't believe it. The soil in my garden is actually mostly sand. But yes I was working to amend the soil every year. I've actually moved and now live in the Pacific Northwest where the soil is pretty black like most garden aficionados prefer.
Thank you for making and posting your video...the whole point of towering up or hilling up potatoes is for the potatoes to grow all the way up the plant - not just at the bottom. The reason your results are disappointing is that it appears you have just plain dirt without amendments such as compost. If you grow potatoes with loose nutrient rish soil and water them you will get much better results.
Please let me suggest another experiment Phil a 33-gallon plastic garbage can full of your growing medium after putting 4 in of wood chips in the bottom. Plant your potato a single potato 8 in below the surface of the top of the garbage can drill three holes in the bottom of the garbage can set it in a tray and water from the bottom only. When the potato plant starts to dry out and die back turnt the whole thing over and tell me how many pounds of potatoes you harvest. I think you're going to be surprised.
Good experiment. The soil in the second tower seemed so dry.... I don't think the potatoes got enough water. Also, I think the potatoes would have been bigger had the plant lasted until the top of the tower was reached. I think more water and a looser soil would create a great harvest with the second tower as the number of potatoes was excellent.
Personally from trial and error. I think the tower method is more work than traditional row methods. Personal favorite method, is to hoe out my rows. Place my seed in rows then cover with mulching straw- or any cheap manured compost. One favorite is rabbit manure. Water regular and feed. Once foliage begins breaking through ground. I will pull the banked dirt and more composted materials around plant. I will do this weekly till flowers set. 1 flower =1 potatoe. I will continue watering and bringing dirt around them. Till foliage begins dying off. It sounds like a lot of work. I think it is much simpler and yields are better. Remember they are growing upwards. If you keep planting over them you stunt them.
What kind of potatoes? I've been gardening just shy of forever, but just discovered that there are determinate and indeterminate varieties. I wonder how many people use determinate potatoes and are disappointed when it doesnt set tubers along the vine, as an indeterminate vine would.
+Cris Wentz I used a russet variety that is supposed to be indeterminate. I still wonder if it is wrong to compare an indeterminate potato to an indeterminate tomato that grows until it is frosted or killed. From what I seem to gather, an indeterminate potato will still only grow a limited time before it stores its energy in the potatos below and the vines will die off. The potato farmers that I talk to tell me that I am right but they don't grow potatoes in towers. What does your potato experience say?
Depends if I'm lazy that year or not....I'm trying potatoes in buckets this year, not towers, but usually grow potatoes in straw for ease of harvest. I've been growing fingerlings as well for the past 4 years and notice that IF I keep them mulched very well, they will set and continue to set tubers all along the vines right up until frost kills them. I may have to try the tower idea with some of them!
His yield is small, probably because of the soil. It looks like sandy clay with little nutrient. He does mention that his irrigation was probably also part of the issue. I'd think quite a bit of straw, some compost, bone meal, and a better watering system would increase yield quite a bit in the same space. His experiment was not without merit, however. Others can use this trial and error to not make the same mistakes. Thanks for the video.
Wow, what a difference I see in the color and look or texture of dirt between your video and others. No one ever says on their videos what state or area they are in. So it is my opinion it's not so much the method as much as the soil the potatoes are planted in. I live in central FL and have planted in containers / large trash can with holes in the bottom and all around, also in 5 gal buckets, in the dirt with mounding as they grew, and this season planted in a ditch using alternating layers of leaves and dirt and then in the final stages straw to mulch. So far I haven't gotten any potatoes !!! In all cases have used Lowes potting soil mixed with peat moss and compost. In all cases I get beautiful plants, but no potatoes, if hard times come my family will not be eating home grown potatoes !
Yes I used the same soil for my traditional methods. It is, in fact, the same soil that grows those famous Idaho potatoes that you buy at the supermarket and eat in the restaurants. Believe it our not, not all "good" soil is black and full of "fiber". Soil type could have effected water transmission and retention in the towers though, and "fiber" would have helped that.
+Lolita's Garden Thank you for the comment and the channel feedback. Your channel looks good too. I liked how you started your garden tour from a high angle. I have been doing a lot of research on potatoes and I just don't think the tower can grow optimum potatoes. I know that my last experiment was a failure on a few levels but I'm glad to hear more experienced observations to lead me in my surch.
I was actually thinking of trying 4 potato towers this spring just as an experiment. I'm going to use a 50%/50% compost/sandy loam soil mix for the soil. It seems that towers aren't a great way to do it but I want to give it a shot just to see what happens. I was wondering if, in your research, you had come across knowledge about the potato plant's ability to form roots where it once had branches and leaves? Do they recommend pruning off the leaves? I've seen videos where people didn't but got potatoes all the way up. Was it the variety of the potato perchance? thanks for posting this video. One thing you might find interesting is a type of garden bed where there are rotting logs under the soil. People refer to this type of bed as a "hugelkulture bed" I did an interesting experiment last year where I tested out the effectiveness of having (at least) a foot of wood under a foot of soil. I built 4 beds, and everything was the same about each bed except the wood underneath two of them. The hugel beds had twice the yield and needed half the water. I'll paste a link to a good article about it by the guy who started permies.com (one of the best resources on homesteading and permaculture I've found) richsoil.com/hugelkultur/
+Karl Rosengrant Thank you for the fantastic comment. I have to admit that there are some contradictory viewpoints about the viability of potato towers. I'm thinking that I will try the experiment again. I do know that a potato can grow roots where the stems and leaves have been. I often hill up my potatoes over the leaves if there is a threat of a late frost in the early stages of growth. I have found that the bane of successful potato tower is the point when the potato stops growing up and starts growing down. What I mean is that there is a point where the potato plant sends the signal to draw energy from the plant to grow the tubers. If all the plants energy has been spent growing up and out it may not have enough to grow good potatoes down below. I have seen one convincing video of a potato tower working, but before that point I thought it was impractical. On hugel beds. I have tried one before. I had it over east of the potato towers in this video. I left before I could get the full benefit or full effect. I do love them though. I'm storing up material from what I cleared for my house so I can make some more hugel beds around this homestead. I hope to share that progress soon. Thanks again for the great comment and I hope I was some help. Please let me know how it all turns out if you can remember this conversation throughout the growing season.
There are videos with successful towers with almost this exact board design. Just do a quick search on here and you can find them. They have insanely improved results.
Looks like all you have is hard non-fertile soil there with no amendments in it. If you do it again add some really good manure in it and fluff it up with straw. I am wondering why you put paper all around your wire tower? That would make it very hard for the plants to get out to the sunlight. Potatoes need lots of water, compost & loose soil.
I've never grown potatoes in a tower. Based on the wind noise audible in the video, that location is breezy. The materials you used to keep the soil in (paper and timber planks, by the looks) were both relatively thin and would wick water out of the _relatively narrow_ towers. Couple the airflow with the wind and, even if you give them the same amount of water as in-ground potatoes, evaporation rates will be higher, the soil will be drier and, consequently, nutrient uptake will be lower. Next time try lining or wrapping the towers with something much, much less porous and you'll retain more water and increase nutrient uptake. Just make sure it's not black or you'll absorb too much heat and cook the root system.
I think you hit it right on the nose, water was my biggest issue. I would imagine that I could have other issues and if I block off the sides in a way that the vines cannot grow out. I may try lining the tower with straw and running drip hose through it in a way that will water it evenly. I really took on this project because of my skepticism, there are companies that sell wooden towers similar to, but smaller than the one I built. I wasn't really surprised at the results I had. I feel I should try at least one more time to create more scientific results, but as for now I say that traditionally grown potatoes are the way to go.
+Simple Ground Ah, the reasoning behind all this didn't come through in the video. Good to know. One last thing: I assume that you used an _indeterminate_ species of potato for this experiment?
Thanks for sharing, I appreciate the knowledge you gained and shared. Failures can be amazing research projects. You probably saved me a bunch of money!
I also tried a potato tower with similar results, but what I learned is that only indeterminate potatoes will produce potatoes in multiplayer layers. Determinate potatoes will only produce the one layer in the lower part of any tower. Try again with an indeterminate variety
That dirt does not look fertile at all. I grow my potatoes in 33 gallon plastic trash cans with holes in the bottom for drainage. I also use a fresh mix of garden soil (native soil, compost, with a little sand) and get great results. Each can produces between 25 and 40 lbs each. Been doing it for years and have never had a bad crop.
It's great to have your feedback. I like to hear success stories to know if I should try again. I do feel the need to defend my soil somewhat. I do agree that it isn't rich black garden soil that the best strive have. It is same Idaho soil that grows the world famous Idaho potatoes.
Granted I'm not there so I'm only speaking based on a youtube video but your soil appeared too packed and completely dry (as in zero moisture whatsoever). That's why I posted that comment. I'm in the Pacific Northwest so I don't know what "dry" soil is lol. I have to pump water from my property almost year round, it gets that bad! Anyway, this is a piece of info from a site I found called "gardeners net". Maybe you can try doing this with the soil for you potatoes and see if it yields better results for you. It's worth a try I think. "Potatoes grow best in soft "muck" soil. Wherever mucklands can be found, you will find onion or potato farming. Potatoes will grow in many other soils, too. But, potato root development is enhanced, by adding lots of compost and loose material into the soil. When preparing your soil, add compost, straw and other amendments down three to six inches deep into your soil."
This is all such good information. Thank you for sharing all of that. That information will be good for anyone who reads through the comments. You did see right, the dirt was dry. I let it dry out before I harvest the potatoes so the potatoes are closer to dry for storage. The dirt probably looks like it is compact because it has a lot of sand naturally in it. I'm used to growing potatoes in sandy soil because it helps prevent fungus and rot by draining well. I'm just not experienced in growing potatoes in a tower.
+George Mcgann I appreciate your commitment. I also think you have a lot to learn about soil, and the many "anything(s)" that grow. I played more with the grass and dandelion than with the ball on my little league field growing up. People grow plants in nothing but water and gravel in a hydroponic system. The world's of plants and soils is complex. Your comment was catchy even though it isn't accurate. I do get your point about what my soil looks like. And that keeping garden plants in soils that optimize growth will give great results. I hope you feel that you can comment in the future knowing that I'm no pushover.
A agree with you. However hydroponics/aquaponic systems all depend on what type of nutrients are in the water, it's not just water, that would never work.
You need to add more organic matter to your dirt (mix peat moss or sawdust, with compost material and existing dirt), to make it soft and fluffy, also add some mulch (fine wood chips or straw) to the very top surface layer of the ground, to help hold moisture in and provide the proper conditions for worms and microbial life in the dirt below. HOW TO: Mix the regular dirt (whatever you have in your yard naturally) with peat moss or sawdust (natural non-treated wood) and dark rich compost material, this will become your growing media, then once the plant or potato seed has been planted, cover the surface with 1" of fine wood chips or straw (DO NOT MIX THE MULCH INTO THE GROUND, it's there ONLY to hold moisture in the ground), as the potato plant grows, and if you wish to add more layers of prepared dirt, then FIRST remove the surface layer of mulch, then add the new mixed dirt, and then lay back on the very top, the same mulch you had removed (the mulch must never be mixed into the ground, its only purpose is to blanket the surface of the ground to hold in moisture and protect microbial and worm life). Watch these two video, and see how fluffy and dark the dirt is, and the results these two individuals got from it, growing potatoes IN CONTAINERS! th-cam.com/video/dMrkIecqQL8/w-d-xo.html th-cam.com/video/kzrIYt6d8fA/w-d-xo.html
I think this is one of the best TH-cam videos I’ve seen in my brief time watching them. You gave background info, showed the entire harvest in an efficient way, explained what you found, and summarized and analyzed at the end. As a result, I learned a lot from your experience! Thank you so much!
Thank you for the kind comment and great feedback. I'm glad you enjoyed the video.
=))
It seems failed experiments teach us way more than success stories. Much appreciated!
Yes, thank you for posting a "failure" on youtube. Often there's just success stories on here and then you feel like an idiot when something seemingly so simple doesn't work for you.
Agreed!
your soil was too hard for potatoes tower you have to use more hay and soft fluffy compost
Parrots park that's what i supposed to comment. i suspected the dry soil
also put some proper charcoal and wood ash to soil for water absorption.
Yes, I agree. Potatoes need something soft to produce well.
...and potatoes use a ton of nutrients. If you dont amendmend some good compost or organic fertilzer. They dont grow good
We used to use that type of soil for our dirt rock wars until the neighbors had to go home
Potatoes require slightly acidic soil to grow well. They also require loose moist soil, where yours looked pretty dry. The deal with towers is because they are exposed on all sides, they tend to dry out easily. Next time try adding hay or grass clippings to help keep things loose and moist, but you still have to water the towers a lot. Good luck with your next round!
i grow potatoes in my backyard every, year round im zone 9a corpus christi,tx. I use potato crates that i made out of produce crates that you get at the produce market as well as meat markets they toss them out after they stock their produce... I cut the bottome out of 2 crate & stack them on top of one crate that still has the bottom on it.... I zip tie them all together & line them with weed barrier...... I fill 3-4 inches with potting soil mix with peat moss including compost that I make in my backyard I also add in warm castings from my worm farm then...... I place 6 potatoes in the crate then i fill soil up 2ft my plants always make it to the top & still have a ft left to add on more soil if needed....I place crates in full sun & water once every 3days or when soil is dry 5 inches down my largest harvest from doing this method was 62 potatoes in one potato crate my largest potato was 2lbs.... i normally grow red norland potatoes being they are my favorite well last yr i also grew Texas baking potatoes my largeat potato was almost 4lbs!... I got 29 potatoes from that crate....I was very excited....now the only reason i grew my potatoes this way was because i lived in an apartment & was short on room so i wanted to see if it was possible to grow them in containers I'm not sure why mine grow well,but i like to share my story & see if it may help others....I now own my own house,but i still grow my potatoes the same way in crates. I find using light soil allows the potatoes room to grow.
+Stephanie Wallace This is really good stuff. Thank you for sharing!
+Simple Ground
no problem i hope this helps some....my kid's & animal's love potatoes so that's why i grow them year round for them.
Stephanie Wallace
It would be great if you made a video and tagged me in it, I garden with my kiddos and we are always looking for space friendly projects
I want to grow potatoes in containers but fear to failure holds me back. Your story motivated me to finally do it. Thank you
Wow! This is so cool. Ima try it, gracias!
thank you for taking the time to share this experience, most people only show their success and not their not so nice ressults, but we all learn from our or other people mistakes, would you consider adding some amendments on the potato growing soil?, I have grown potatoes in pots, and they are very greedy plants, I saw you have some goats, their manure and the wasted hay I beleive would be great addition as nitrogen and carbon source... I would also fertigate with diluted urine regularly for nice large plump potatoes...
Thank you for the comment. I have definatly learned some good improvements since I have posted this video. I will have to see how it goes when I try the experiment again in the future.
Simple Ground bro i think the problem was the soil. it's to dry
Roanoke Valley Homestead what a gracious voice you bring to this page~ maranatha !
Roanoke valley homestead did you say "diluted urine"? Please explain?
Pretty nice design. That soil was pretty stiff. You could add hay or straw to the towers as you build them up and that might help.
Chuck
Yes I have learned a lot since I shot the video.
your ground is too dry
Thank you for your honesty. I watched another clip that did a similar tower using straw, compost, water and she did not post the results. I guess your video and your explanation shows why.
Thank You for your time. Nice video. I have seen this happen before. It was caused by something i have yet to see in your comments. I believe the real trouble you had is that you planted early season potatoes . Try it again with late season potatoes. The plant last much longer. You admitted that the growth was stifled , short lived (early season variety). Towers require late season varieties to be successful. The longer plant life allows for a lot more tubers. Just my opinion, but you can look it up. Hope this helps, and i would like to see you do this again.
Hi, I used to cover my potatoes with hay as they grew! Got bigger potatoes I thing because there was not so much weight on them. hay holds good moisture well too. Will breakdown during growing season. Good luck! New potatoes at any size, fresh dug doesn't get any better!.
If you grew the potatoes in a large and deep container made of plastic (or non-porous material) with better and nutrient rich soil that holds a lot of moisture (something like equal parts compost, garden soil with some vermiculite and peat moss), and not made of wood, hays, papers with poor dry soil, I think you would achieve much better yields, as potatoes need a lot of moisture to do well (but well drained soil so always drill some holes on the bottom of the container or potatoes would rot). The tower with hays like that will dry out the soil very quickly, and more often you water to make up the dry condition, more nutrient in the soil will be drained out of the tower, leading to poorer soil condition, even if you started with ok soil. This was a good experiment to see what the yields would look like in a dry and not very rich soil, which potatoes don't really like.
Dude, I just harvested one 5 gallon bucket and was able to get half of what you did. Like others have said that soil looks really bad. On getting water in the middle I would make the soil concave down so the soil runs to the middle and then out to the sides.
Thanks for the great and honest video and taking the time and how you ended it... I appreciate your restraint for not replying to all the comments with the questions and remarks about the kind of soil and dryness (as you let the soil dry well before harvesting) that were answered in a few other comments... I plan to try to grow some food this year. Keep up the good work and have a good one
I really appreciated your honest video. I have tried the tower and building up the potato plant to a higher level with little or no success. Next I will just try straight in the ground with a good mix of soil.
Hopefully I can do a better experiment in the future. Until then, I still think the traditional method is best. I wish you the best on your next potato crop!
I’ve never had success with the towers, even after using straw, coco coir, and compost. I did get decent harvest using 4’x4’x12” beds.
Excellent, thank you for the information to speed up my results
Good video, I think I will use a pot! I learned a lot from your experiments. My best potatoes are usually from pots. I tried the tower, but we were semi rural at that time, backing onto a reserve. The water rats burrowed under the tower and ate all my potatoes on the vines whilst still underground, the plants were fine. I pulled out the tops to 10% bits left with ratty bites. Plastic bins after that with irrigation & rat traps in the veggie garden!
Having a similar problem so next year will put some chicken wire perhaps over and around plantings :)
The soil looks so very hard. Not loose enough to allow roots to spread. Needs compost. Need to loosen up that soil.
+JustG I have have a few people comment about my soil. I do agree that it isn't the rich dark garden soil that many gardeners dream of having, but it is the same soil that grows the famous Idaho potatoes. My potatoes that I grew in the traditional hills grew just fine in the same type of soil. I am curious, do you grow potatoes in towers? If you do, have you had better luck with a looser soil?
+Simple Ground while I am not a video artist such as yourself I have grown potatoes and other root crops successfully using several different planting methods. I would like to challenge you to try something different. Plant your towers again but prepare the soil by adding compost, straw, sand, grass clippings, leaves, and any other natural improvements which are available to you. Compare those results with the results in this video and I am sure you will not only get larger potatoes but many many more potatoes.
+JustG Than you for your reply. I planning on doing the experiment again. I will probably have an amended soil tower in the mix. my real doubt, the reason I tried the towers, is that growing potatoes in a tower is a good idea at all. No matter the soil. I personally feel that the energy of the potato plant can go either to the potato or the vine and it may as well go to the potato. That is why I was asking if you have had any success in growing potatoes in a tower. I am not yet a believer.
+Jared Neibaur I did have success with several different types of towers. Stacking tires to plant in was the least successful and I suspect the reason being less air flow. I did a wood box stack similar to yours and that was a bit more successful. My most successful was a rather large burlap sack which I put around rebar posts. The conclusion I came to was the more airflow the better results. The looser the soil the better results. The more nutrients in the soil the better results. Now when ever I plant any kind of root crops I make sure there is plenty of composted material.
+JustG That is great information. Thanks for sharing it with everyone. I'll be sure to try it in my next go around.
Wish you'd of had better luck. We've got plenty of land but have grown them for about 30 years in an old tire stack just for fun. We use straight compost, with some perlite, vermiculite, & peat moss. And rabbit poop. Usually get about 100 - 125 pounds to a stack. Caution - gotta have a indeterminate late season variety, and leave about a foot to two feet of green each time you add soil. And keep it moist. It'll work - I wouldn't stop trying. Good luck - glad I found your channel.
Impressive for sure. I too have started growing in containers. I'm using a bigger planter, but I will have more to plant in 5 gallon buckets. An idea I will use for nest year.
When growing in the ground, I've learned to limit the direct sunlight on the surrounding soil of the potatoes, by using straw around them om the hill. I know you use that in the making of this tower. But In growing other things, like Tomatoes in a topsey turvey, one problem we have was the soil would dry out so quickly, and nutrients would be used up. So, I learned that with any kind of tower arrangement, I had to limit sun exposure, or else the soil dries too much. With your experience, do you think a place that gets 4 to 6 hrs morning sun, but is shaded the rest of the day, would do better? I've never tried this with potatoes as you have, just wondering about that.
I have made growing barrel towers and they all failed until I layered the tower with soil then straw then soil then straw all the way up. This way when I watered the tower the straw retained some moisture. I did not use that system on potatoes but on greens. It worked well.
Enough said about the soil. I am not sure, but did you pick the right kind of seed potato? Here in Germany for instance I would use a late potato. It continues to grow throughout summer, then in early fall it starts turning yellow and brown and this is when you start harvesting. I could imagine that if you used an early kind, that growing season is over too soon and your harvest is around the base of your tower only. I don't know your climatic situation, but this is what it looks loke to me. Your tower with the wooden boards is only half the height it should be. That seems like another indicator to me that you might have chosen the wrong potato for your experiment.
+Anton Chigurh I'm going to try again this coming season at my new homestead. It has darker soil that is sure to make people happy. I'll also try a different potato.
I do want to defend my soil again though. I know it doesn't look like the rich black stuff that is often found in garden books or the like. This same soil grows the famous Idaho potatoes plus I had a great crop of potatoes in my traditional rows in the exact same soil.
Simple Ground : Right, that's why I didn't want to "pick" on the soil like almost everyone else. Of course you let it dry before you harvested. I have no doubt that you had been watering enough before. The wooden boards on the right side indicate that. I really appreciate your reply and I wish you "tons" of potatoes ( do you say spuds??) on your next try. Being the "smart a.." that I am it would give me the opportunity to say:"Ha! So it DID take a different potato. I was right all along", lol....hmmm,..... if only you wouldn't change the soyl at the same time.....DANG! ;D
+Anton Chigurh I appreciate the comment. And thanks for being a good sport. Not much I can do about the soil change but hopefully my next trial is more telling.
I have talked to a few people who say they have had genuine success with a potato tower and one of them convinced me that I should use a different potato. I'll do my best to get better results this next time.
Thank you for the very informative test and for making the video sharing the results
Thank you for sharing! A failed experiment gets people to comment with very good suggestions and tips and that helps a lot in the learning process.
I've grown potatoes successfully in 5 gallon buckets with holes drilled in the bottom and sides. For a regular sized potato only one per bucket and for fingerling you can do 3-4 per bucket. I put 3 inches of good soil, vermiculite and perilite mixed. I put potato slips in then cover with 3 more inches of soil. When plants get to about 6-7 inches tall I cover stem with soil but I leave 2-3 inches of plant sticking out of the dirt. If you cover them all way, you will get the results you had. Hope you try again and have success :)
+justmeinflorida Thank you for this info. This is the stuff that I hope to have in my comments. Just to be clear for anyone reading. In my box type tower I did only cover my potatoes as you described, leaving 2-3 inches. I just did it multiple times throughout the summer. The circular tower I planted all at once, with potatoes throughout, hoping the potato vines would find their way out the sides as they grew.
+Simple Ground In your box type tower did you stop adding soil at some point? When my buckets get to around two inches from the top I stop adding soil. I let the plant grow out from there. They're usually 2-3 feet above the bucket before they die off and are ready to harvest. I wait a week after complete die off before I harvest. I fertilize once half way through their growth and lightly water probably once a week unless the soil gets to dry then I'll water more often.
That's how I'm growing mine. Last year my soil was too dense and they did poorly. Now I used compost, vermiculite, pet moss, sand and a little liquid fertilizer and most of mine in the buckets are doing well.
Judging by the color of your soil, it could use a lot of amending when assembling either tower. It should be a rich color with some brown to it.
Were those potatoes determinate or indeterminate? Makes a difference if they will grow potatoes on the stulk.
Thanks for posting. I'm curious - what variety of potatoes did you use? I've heard it's the late-season varieties you want to use for a potato tower.
+Dave Cannon I'm pretty sure I used russets and I've now found that they aren't the best choice for potato towers. I'm planning to start a new tower this spring and I'm still looking for a better potato.
Was there any compost added? It looks like your soil was the problem. Potatoes require very rich soil and feeding of nutients.
We're they early or late potatoes? Supposed to be late potatoes so they'll fill up the tower. The early ones stay on the bottom (Just saw that info on another video.)
Maybe needs more food like worm casting humus etc.
My first reaction was, "The soil is so dry!" Then I wondered, "Why didn't he explain what kind of plant food (fertilizer, compost, etc.) he used?" So I appreciate very much that you did all this work to make a still very interesting experiment, there are important details missing. After reading many of the comments below, I realize that many other people were thinking the same thing as I was. One thing obvious to me is that such tower geometries run the risk of dry soil simply because of the fact they have so much surface area exposed to the drying air, and that they should require more frequent watering than do conventional methods. As you mentioned, a drip watering system should be a big help, as would giving the potatoes something to eat. When you say it's the same soil that is used to grow Idaho potatoes, again, do you mean that commercial farmers use only soil, with no added potato food? Even with the rich loam soils we have here in New Jersey, we still have to add some kind of plant food, otherwise we're only playing in the dirt. Which for some of us is maybe the biggest reward.
Orrab Mas Thanks for sharing your breakdown of the situation. I'll try my best to answer. I think that you are right about the geometry causing more drying. I also think that a looser soil would allow for more water penetration.
And yes, when I say it's the same Idaho soil, I mean that it is the same soil that the farmers plant their potatoes. They do feed it what it needs, multiple times a year, as you well understand. My point is, if you looked across my fence into the neighbor's potato field it would "look" like the same pale soil in this tower video and not the loose black soil that everyone sees in a regular garden book. It is hard to tell soil nutrition only by looking at it. That is why we have soil test. I hope that clarifies some of it.
I do want to try the experiment again sometime though. I live in the Pacific Northwest now, we will have to see how it works here. I'll do a better job of feeding it.
Thanks again.
Not all potatoes grow the same. Some produce only 1 root system and others produce several root systems as they grow.
i read comments , yes i think some mistake or irregularity in irrigation , either too much at once that compacted the soil then lack of it that made it hard dry , try adding more compost and constant moisture .
My appreciation for your effort, and I will pass this information on to the PTB in my own Homestead.
Complete sucess.
For us all...
Thank you for your experiment.
Nice video, very informative, thanks for sharing👍
Not sure if anyone noted in the comments or if you've learned in the meantime but apparently there are two types of potatoes, determinant and non-determinant, and only the non-determinant will really grow much roots up higher if doing a tower or anything vertical, might not have been the right type just fyi.
Interesting video. Thanks. I was thinking irrigation from the moment you started, because there was dust (dried topsoil) blowing around every time you moved and the towers seemed very dry. Also, because they're raised, these drain very well (or too well since you need more water, I think). So, in the ground wouldn't be subject to drying out. In a similar vein, I've been making raised beds, but I recently made a sunken bed - dug out of clay, and filled with finished compost. This might not be good for something that is easily drowned (the clay holds the water like a pond), but for starting seedlings, it seemed to work well. Anyway, I was wondering if there was some way you could build these closer to the house - it looks green over there, and maybe incorporate some runoff from the down spouts. Seems like if you just directed the downspout into the tower that would be way too much water. But maybe have a little pond from the downspout and put the tower next to it, or, maybe in the ground would be better. I've heard potatoes like water. I'm about to try planting potatoes, pretty much for the first time, I threw some in a hugel culture before and they did okay. I'm pretty inexperienced but gung ho, so I was checking out videos. I might put mine next to a pond and manually bail water out and drop it in the tower. Too much work, but can't think of an easier way really quickly. Maybe I'll do a sunken bed, that could definitely suck up water from the down spout without my doing anything and start hilling up over it.
Thank you for doing this video. Please adjust and fix and post the following yeilds.
Awesome video friend. I a trying a tower this year. Doing it a little different though. Loved your presentation.
did you have straw layers? and did you use vegetable scraps on top regularly to allow nutrients. Great experiment
+Carla Garrett I didn't use straw or vegetable scraps. Thanks for the comment and the ideas.
I enjoyed your video despite the poor crop you obtained. You have a nice manner and for once this is a video without an irritating music track, I appreciate that. I'm weighing up whether next season to build towers or a bag-in-a-bucket system. The argument for container grown veg is that you can fit a lot of plants into a small yard, and some people show surprisingly large harvests from this method. But in the ground removes the need for most watering. Thanks again, and subscribed.
Thank you. I have seen a couple convincing videos about successful potato crops in towers since I posted this video. I still have some doubts that I need to test and put to rest so I will be trying this again next year. If you add a hollow tube with holes in it you may be able to have an easier time watering.
Best of luck.
Great video and thanks for your video. I grow potatoes in a potato tower, barrels, and grow bags and what I think you're missing is rich, nutrient-rich soil with compost and other good stuff. Your soil looks like fill dirt.
I have a wooden potato tower also. The kind of potato that grows there the best is the Elba. This is an indeterminant potato. That kind of potato grows continuously up the vine.You may want to give those a try. They produce a large potato.
Want variety of potato did you plant? Determinant or indeterminant? Determinant only grow one layer of tubers. Indetermenent will keep adding another layer of them on the stems as long as you keep piling up the hill.
hey man might try add straw and leaves and compost. look lot clay soil. i try old tires method. what did fill bottom 2-3 tires with straw/ compost leaves, top 2 tires filled potting soil from store put potato slips at top. give try see what happens. be carful not get dirt in rim tire don't potatoes grow in there not able get out break them but easily do that bored as well won't have same problem i had i work what got.
Out of curiosity, roughly what latitude/elevation/climate zone is your farm?
My farm is in southern Idaho USA. It is around 4000 ft above sea level. it is quite dry we average 9.5" of annual rainfall.
Simple Ground 9.5" and 4000' - ouch! That's pretty hostile. How deep did you need to sink your well to get water, or are you blessed by a good catchment?
+Penfold 'OoO' I'm near a river so it is only 15' to water.
I've had the same experience with the bails too. The next year I gave them more water getting twice the amount but still I had more success just growing them in the ground.
Use sawdust for soil and pour a manure tea over the plantings a couple of times during growth. Plant in sawdust several seed taters and cover with sawdust. When the leaf and vine grow above the level about three inches, cover them again in sawdust and repeat thereafter. by the time you have the tower filled there will be multiple levels of potatoes.
Your right about the energy being use up from the tuber. Try it with straw on top and a light amount of compost or fertilizer dusting and keep adding straw every couple days. Needs to be light. Otherwise it won't be easy for the vine to grow through and you will lose the vigorous early growth. Also, keep it watered because it's above ground.
Hey Simple Ground. I think the potato tower is one of those memes that gets over-hyped. I highly recommend you look at Curzio Caravati's work at the Kenosha Potato Project, (google it or look on FB, if I link I find they usually think a post is spam), Curzio has been testing hundreds of varieties for growing in grow-bags, which is a similar technique, and he has a pretty good handle on what results you can realistically expect. In a nutshell, there is a upper yield limit for a potato plant, and you cannot actually go much above that limit no matter what you do. This is also something I've seen Walter De Jong (potato breeder at Cornell University say in some webinars, which you can find on TH-cam. Good video you've got here.
+Oxbow Farm Thank you, this is good stuff
Kenosha potato project
Also how much did you water it?
It seems to me, you might not have used the optimal variety of potato. You need to make sure to use a "late" potato. The early ones only grow new tubers for a short amount of time, where as late varieties tend to keep growing new tubers into the new layers of soil and you end up with potatoes all along the "vine".
Thanks for sharing your experience! This is how we all learn!
I've noted the energy issue. This season is my first major potato effort (part tubs/part garden bed) so...crossed fingers.
Did you grow late season potatoes? I believe if you grow early season the stop producing too soon.
I agree with earlier comments if you had better soil as well as the drip line you would have had more success. my boss tried the same thing but in a barrel with too much clay and it wasnt very successful although he added miracle grow it he had tomatoes on top and they were all fighting for the food. and the water couldnt get to the center. Was perfect for the ants that moved in though. made it even more disappointing digging through them! please try again with a few diffrent soils and fertilisers in sepperat towers maybe three of each! Thanks for the video!
It wasn't the tower that is disappointing, it's you bud. The soil was compact and didn't contain enough compost. Did you check the soil ph to make sure it's acidic enough?
I am greatly appreciative of the work you put into this video. I agree with Parrots park, maybe layer with sawdust, sand and/or straw. Just a thought. Thanks!
+C B Thank you.
If you can get it, try the "Red Emalie" this ist e special kind for this experiment, because ist makes potatoes from ground to top. best wishes for a new experiment!
I was under the impression you were supposed to let the vine grow shoots before planting the next layer of potatoes. This might help fix the issue of the bottom potatoes not producing.
I thought your second harvest looked quite good until I noticed your hand. LOL. Fingerlings. I dug up a potato plant last week that had marble sized potatoes on it. I planted it back again. Rodents or something eat all my potatoes, anyway.
hey bud I liked watching this I did notice you had soil that wasn't very good draining soil sandy soil hey amongst the soil or even wood shavings will help your potatoes grow easier, and lots of deep watering until it is getting close to harvest
Did any of your garden do good in that soil?? U need some cover crop.. try a tillage radish
+Erin Morris Yes actually. I grew a lovely garden that year. The potatoes grown in the the traditional rows grew normally. It is funny how much advice I seem to get about my soil.
Simple Ground do you do anything to build your clay?
+Erin Morris I haven't said I
This often because most people don't believe it. The soil in my garden is actually mostly sand. But yes I was working to amend the soil every year. I've actually moved and now live in the Pacific Northwest where the soil is pretty black like most garden aficionados prefer.
Simple Ground nice but the Pacific northwest sounds WAAAAAAY to liberal for me!!! Do u feel the Bern out there?
+Erin Morris Im in a small county town and it isn't too bad.
Thank you for making and posting your video...the whole point of towering up or hilling up potatoes is for the potatoes to grow all the way up the plant - not just at the bottom. The reason your results are disappointing is that it appears you have just plain dirt without amendments such as compost. If you grow potatoes with loose nutrient rish soil and water them you will get much better results.
Please let me suggest another experiment Phil a 33-gallon plastic garbage can full of your growing medium after putting 4 in of wood chips in the bottom. Plant your potato a single potato 8 in below the surface of the top of the garbage can drill three holes in the bottom of the garbage can set it in a tray and water from the bottom only. When the potato plant starts to dry out and die back turnt the whole thing over and tell me how many pounds of potatoes you harvest. I think you're going to be surprised.
Did you plant early harvest or late harvest potatoes? That may be the issue. 👍🏻
Good experiment. The soil in the second tower seemed so dry.... I don't think the potatoes got enough water. Also, I think the potatoes would have been bigger had the plant lasted until the top of the tower was reached. I think more water and a looser soil would create a great harvest with the second tower as the number of potatoes was excellent.
Personally from trial and error. I think the tower method is more work than traditional row methods. Personal favorite method, is to hoe out my rows. Place my seed in rows then cover with mulching straw- or any cheap manured compost. One favorite is rabbit manure. Water regular and feed. Once foliage begins breaking through ground. I will pull the banked dirt and more composted materials around plant. I will do this weekly till flowers set. 1 flower =1 potatoe. I will continue watering and bringing dirt around them. Till foliage begins dying off. It sounds like a lot of work. I think it is much simpler and yields are better. Remember they are growing upwards. If you keep planting over them you stunt them.
This is my preferred method too. Thanks for the input too.
What kind of potatoes? I've been gardening just shy of forever, but just discovered that there are determinate and indeterminate varieties. I wonder how many people use determinate potatoes and are disappointed when it doesnt set tubers along the vine, as an indeterminate vine would.
+Cris Wentz I used a russet variety that is supposed to be indeterminate. I still wonder if it is wrong to compare an indeterminate potato to an indeterminate tomato that grows until it is frosted or killed. From what I seem to gather, an indeterminate potato will still only grow a limited time before it stores its energy in the potatos below and the vines will die off. The potato farmers that I talk to tell me that I am right but they don't grow potatoes in towers. What does your potato experience say?
Depends if I'm lazy that year or not....I'm trying potatoes in buckets this year, not towers, but usually grow potatoes in straw for ease of harvest. I've been growing fingerlings as well for the past 4 years and notice that IF I keep them mulched very well, they will set and continue to set tubers all along the vines right up until frost kills them. I may have to try the tower idea with some of them!
His yield is small, probably because of the soil. It looks like sandy clay with little nutrient. He does mention that his irrigation was probably also part of the issue. I'd think quite a bit of straw, some compost, bone meal, and a better watering system would increase yield quite a bit in the same space. His experiment was not without merit, however. Others can use this trial and error to not make the same mistakes. Thanks for the video.
Wow, what a difference I see in the color and look or texture of dirt between your video and others. No one ever says on their videos what state or area they are in. So it is my opinion it's not so much the method as much as the soil the potatoes are planted in. I live in central FL and have planted in containers / large trash can with holes in the bottom and all around, also in 5 gal buckets, in the dirt with mounding as they grew, and this season planted in a ditch using alternating layers of leaves and dirt and then in the final stages straw to mulch. So far I haven't gotten any potatoes !!! In all cases have used Lowes potting soil mixed with peat moss and compost. In all cases I get beautiful plants, but no potatoes, if hard times come my family will not be eating home grown potatoes !
Depleted soil with no fibre..did you compare to teaditional methods with same poor soil?
Yes I used the same soil for my traditional methods. It is, in fact, the same soil that grows those famous Idaho potatoes that you buy at the supermarket and eat in the restaurants. Believe it our not, not all "good" soil is black and full of "fiber". Soil type could have effected water transmission and retention in the towers though, and "fiber" would have helped that.
Exactly.
That's tough .Maybe a different technique for your area. Try spreading the plants wider than recommended and mulch well. Some compost wouldn't hurt.
I'm not sure I've ever seen a potato tower succeed. Thanks for the video. I just found your channel and it looks like a good one.
+Lolita's Garden Thank you for the comment and the channel feedback. Your channel looks good too. I liked how you started your garden tour from a high angle.
I have been doing a lot of research on potatoes and I just don't think the tower can grow optimum potatoes. I know that my last experiment was a failure on a few levels but I'm glad to hear more experienced observations to lead me in my surch.
I was actually thinking of trying 4 potato towers this spring just as an experiment. I'm going to use a 50%/50% compost/sandy loam soil mix for the soil. It seems that towers aren't a great way to do it but I want to give it a shot just to see what happens. I was wondering if, in your research, you had come across knowledge about the potato plant's ability to form roots where it once had branches and leaves? Do they recommend pruning off the leaves? I've seen videos where people didn't but got potatoes all the way up. Was it the variety of the potato perchance? thanks for posting this video.
One thing you might find interesting is a type of garden bed where there are rotting logs under the soil. People refer to this type of bed as a "hugelkulture bed" I did an interesting experiment last year where I tested out the effectiveness of having (at least) a foot of wood under a foot of soil. I built 4 beds, and everything was the same about each bed except the wood underneath two of them. The hugel beds had twice the yield and needed half the water. I'll paste a link to a good article about it by the guy who started permies.com (one of the best resources on homesteading and permaculture I've found) richsoil.com/hugelkultur/
+Karl Rosengrant Thank you for the fantastic comment. I have to admit that there are some contradictory viewpoints about the viability of potato towers. I'm thinking that I will try the experiment again. I do know that a potato can grow roots where the stems and leaves have been. I often hill up my potatoes over the leaves if there is a threat of a late frost in the early stages of growth.
I have found that the bane of successful potato tower is the point when the potato stops growing up and starts growing down. What I mean is that there is a point where the potato plant sends the signal to draw energy from the plant to grow the tubers. If all the plants energy has been spent growing up and out it may not have enough to grow good potatoes down below. I have seen one convincing video of a potato tower working, but before that point I thought it was impractical.
On hugel beds. I have tried one before. I had it over east of the potato towers in this video. I left before I could get the full benefit or full effect. I do love them though. I'm storing up material from what I cleared for my house so I can make some more hugel beds around this homestead. I hope to share that progress soon. Thanks again for the great comment and I hope I was some help.
Please let me know how it all turns out if you can remember this conversation throughout the growing season.
There are videos with successful towers with almost this exact board design. Just do a quick search on here and you can find them. They have insanely improved results.
For the latter tower, you must use late season varieties. Early season varieties grow only 1 set of potatoes.
You also have to water after you plant and keep them moist as they are growing.
Looks like all you have is hard non-fertile soil there with no amendments in it. If you do it again add some really good manure in it and fluff it up with straw. I am wondering why you put paper all around your wire tower? That would make it very hard for the plants to get out to the sunlight. Potatoes need lots of water, compost & loose soil.
I like the fact that you showed the real deal
I've never grown potatoes in a tower. Based on the wind noise audible in the video, that location is breezy. The materials you used to keep the soil in (paper and timber planks, by the looks) were both relatively thin and would wick water out of the _relatively narrow_ towers. Couple the airflow with the wind and, even if you give them the same amount of water as in-ground potatoes, evaporation rates will be higher, the soil will be drier and, consequently, nutrient uptake will be lower.
Next time try lining or wrapping the towers with something much, much less porous and you'll retain more water and increase nutrient uptake. Just make sure it's not black or you'll absorb too much heat and cook the root system.
I think you hit it right on the nose, water was my biggest issue. I would imagine that I could have other issues and if I block off the sides in a way that the vines cannot grow out. I may try lining the tower with straw and running drip hose through it in a way that will water it evenly.
I really took on this project because of my skepticism, there are companies that sell wooden towers similar to, but smaller than the one I built. I wasn't really surprised at the results I had. I feel I should try at least one more time to create more scientific results, but as for now I say that traditionally grown potatoes are the way to go.
+Simple Ground Ah, the reasoning behind all this didn't come through in the video. Good to know. One last thing: I assume that you used an _indeterminate_ species of potato for this experiment?
+Penfold 'OoO' I used Russet Burbank potatoes which are indeterminate from what I understand.
Thanks for sharing, I appreciate the knowledge you gained and shared. Failures can be amazing research projects. You probably saved me a bunch of money!
thanks for this great video!
I also tried a potato tower with similar results, but what I learned is that only indeterminate potatoes will produce potatoes in multiplayer layers. Determinate potatoes will only produce the one layer in the lower part of any tower. Try again with an indeterminate variety
thanks for the comparison
Where did all that soil come from?
Did you water, soil looks really dry.
That dirt does not look fertile at all. I grow my potatoes in 33 gallon plastic trash cans with holes in the bottom for drainage. I also use a fresh mix of garden soil (native soil, compost, with a little sand) and get great results. Each can produces between 25 and 40 lbs each. Been doing it for years and have never had a bad crop.
It's great to have your feedback. I like to hear success stories to know if I should try again. I do feel the need to defend my soil somewhat. I do agree that it isn't rich black garden soil that the best strive have. It is same Idaho soil that grows the world famous Idaho potatoes.
Granted I'm not there so I'm only speaking based on a youtube video but your soil appeared too packed and completely dry (as in zero moisture whatsoever). That's why I posted that comment. I'm in the Pacific Northwest so I don't know what "dry" soil is lol. I have to pump water from my property almost year round, it gets that bad! Anyway, this is a piece of info from a site I found called "gardeners net". Maybe you can try doing this with the soil for you potatoes and see if it yields better results for you. It's worth a try I think.
"Potatoes grow best in soft "muck" soil. Wherever mucklands can be found, you will find onion or potato farming. Potatoes will grow in many other soils, too. But, potato root development is enhanced, by adding lots of compost and loose material into the soil. When preparing your soil, add compost, straw and other amendments down three to six inches deep into your soil."
Simple Ground Oh I forgot this line: While potatoes like soft muckland, they do not like continuously wet soils. They will rot in these conditions.
This is all such good information. Thank you for sharing all of that. That information will be good for anyone who reads through the comments. You did see right, the dirt was dry. I let it dry out before I harvest the potatoes so the potatoes are closer to dry for storage. The dirt probably looks like it is compact because it has a lot of sand naturally in it. I'm used to growing potatoes in sandy soil because it helps prevent fungus and rot by draining well. I'm just not experienced in growing potatoes in a tower.
you can't use the dirt from your local little league baseball field and expect anything to grow well...
+George Mcgann I appreciate your commitment. I also think you have a lot to learn about soil, and the many "anything(s)" that grow. I played more with the grass and dandelion than with the ball on my little league field growing up. People grow plants in nothing but water and gravel in a hydroponic system. The world's of plants and soils is complex. Your comment was catchy even though it isn't accurate.
I do get your point about what my soil looks like. And that keeping garden plants in soils that optimize growth will give great results. I hope you feel that you can comment in the future knowing that I'm no pushover.
+George Mcgann No hard feelings here. I hope I can keep giving you good stuff to see.
Simple Ground I look forward to it man, keep it up!...
A agree with you. However hydroponics/aquaponic systems all depend on what type of nutrients are in the water, it's not just water, that would never work.
TheApotheosis OfGDot LoL
I appreciate your thoroughness but I have always had great luck with towers... I am in SC
maybe manuring has not been proper? Leaf Mold and Compost might remedy the outcome?
Thank you for the video!
YES and you need to FEED the plants The soil doesn't look as if its got any fibre in it . Its not dark .
I was going to build a potato tower but now I'm doubting it lol thanks for your video
You need to add more organic matter to your dirt (mix peat moss or sawdust, with compost material and existing dirt), to make it soft and fluffy, also add some mulch (fine wood chips or straw) to the very top surface layer of the ground, to help hold moisture in and provide the proper conditions for worms and microbial life in the dirt below.
HOW TO:
Mix the regular dirt (whatever you have in your yard naturally) with peat moss or sawdust (natural non-treated wood) and dark rich compost material, this will become your growing media, then once the plant or potato seed has been planted, cover the surface with 1" of fine wood chips or straw (DO NOT MIX THE MULCH INTO THE GROUND, it's there ONLY to hold moisture in the ground), as the potato plant grows, and if you wish to add more layers of prepared dirt, then FIRST remove the surface layer of mulch, then add the new mixed dirt, and then lay back on the very top, the same mulch you had removed (the mulch must never be mixed into the ground, its only purpose is to blanket the surface of the ground to hold in moisture and protect microbial and worm life).
Watch these two video, and see how fluffy and dark the dirt is, and the results these two individuals got from it, growing potatoes IN CONTAINERS!
th-cam.com/video/dMrkIecqQL8/w-d-xo.html
th-cam.com/video/kzrIYt6d8fA/w-d-xo.html
just soil as way to grow potatoes if you feed them with extra feed it will make them stronger plants and larger potatoes.
+Gary Snape It is refreshing to hear your comments. I was beginning to feel that I was the only one one that believes that on TH-cam.
Thanks for sharing.
Wisdom, thanks for the video lesson.