# Ive just went through a doz U Tube vids on growing taters in containers



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

none of them showed BOTH the planting of, and the harvesting of the taters. Anybody have luck doing this?????????


----------



## Bearfootfarm (Jul 13, 2006)

FarmboyBill said:


> none of them showed BOTH the planting of, and the harvesting of the taters.


First you put them in the dirt, next you take them out of the dirt.
That part's not different no matter what growing method you use.


----------



## Terri (May 10, 2002)

I have, and it is similar to raising them in dirt.

Basically, the potatos are formed above the seed piece. My harvest was smallish, possibly because the plants were small, which in turn was possibly because the fertility of the pot of soil was not high enough. In the ground the plant can spread its roots: in a container the fertility I give it is all that it has.


----------



## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

I think this is where Bill tells us he's talking about sweet potatoes......
The chunk of white potato must have at least one good "eye" and it needs to be in moist soil that can stay moist all the time at first and then mostly moist the rest of the season.
Where they do it commercially, it is very light sandy soil and plenty of irrigation. They irrigate right up to the point the centers of the potato get soft, then cut it off for a spell.
Harvest, the hard part, is where you put the soil in one pile and the potatoes in another pile. You can do it with your bare hands, a sharp stick, a potato shovel or a piece of machinery that slides along under the potatoes and runs the dirt and potatoes along a conveyor made of 3/8 steel rods. For containers, you dump over the containers. Then you bag up the potatoes.


----------



## CajunSunshine (Apr 24, 2007)

FBB, remember that thread where I talked about planting potatoes in pillowcases? You can follow that same principle in any container. 

.


----------



## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

It's a gimmick, just plant them in a mound you'll do much better


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I agree with you dad. Ive tried and tried. NEVER had any luck with REGULAR potatoes in containers. IF I had someone to run my lister for me, id plant them in rows, but I don't, and I want to find out why I cant grow them in containers. I VERY seldom give up on a thing till its been proven by me that I just CANT do it. I aint to that point yet. The other day, I took my horse mower and mowed up some dried dead grass. I used it cause its too much trouble to put on my tractor mower for mowing an acre. THEN I took my horse dump rake and raked it up in one windrow. It made WAY more than I thought it would. That's good tho. Im thinking of using a bit of it for raising potatoes in straw/hay. and the rest to go through my bailer whenever I find someone who can tell/show me why it isn't tying.
I watched vids where they grew taters in soil only, and where they grew it in soil and grass. NOT ONE showed the harvest. Only ONE showed the harvest, but didn't show how he had planted them. The harvest was HUGE. He had big ole vines say at least 2ft long sticking out of the ground which he cut off, and then tipped out the dirt/taters.


----------



## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

I tried growing mine in towers last year... I'll tell you what not to do... I tried using chicken wire because I had it laying around... I put the previous year's leaves that I had raked to the garden around the outside then dirt in the middle and planted a row of potatoes then more leaves and more dirt and kept doing that until I had 5 lbs of potatoes in each tower. They claimed you'd get 10x that per tower on harvest doing it that way... well I might have been lucky to get my 5lbs of potatoes per tower back but they were tiny. I don't think the leaves held moisture like straw would so I won't do that again, and chicken wire had no strength so I had to put posts to hold the wire up so won't do that again... I might try the towers again this year but I'll use welded wire so it has strength on its own, and will use straw like was recommended so it holds more moisture.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I saw a woman and her maybe granddaughter doing that.


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

Best way I've found to grow potatoes ten to one (ten pounds of potatoes per one pound of seed and ten foot of row) is use soil that's mellow and very fertile down to about 18 inches deep, plant the seed pieces ten inches apart in four inches of soil, then either mound (hill) soil or straw over them as they grow. Side dress with more fertilizer at blossom time, and keep the soil moist to capacity as the tubers bulk up until the plants start to yellow down.

You can put boards or wire around that combination if you want to, but you'll still have to work with those parameters to get the ten to one ratio----that means you'll have to have ten or more planters--you have to allow for root space and leaf space for the growth they need. You can't starve the roots or leaves--which is what most people do with potatoes in towers.

No magic bullets........but sometimes you get more than ten to one if you are willing to do the work.

geo


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

U talking about 4in below, and/or 4in above the seed.
When piling up ground/grass, how can you tell how moist the lower insider is??


----------



## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

FarmboyBill said:


> U talking about 4in below, and/or 4in above the seed.
> When piling up ground/grass, how can you tell how moist the lower insider is??



You're the farmer, after 70 years you should be able to grow potatoes. It's not that hard and you don't need any gimmicks.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I CAN grow taters IN THE GROUND. MY PROBLEM is I don't have anybody to run the tractor, OR the lister to make the row.


----------



## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

Do it the old fashioned way with a shovel and a hoe?


----------



## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

I don't even have a tractor and have no problem planting potatoes.


----------



## CajunSunshine (Apr 24, 2007)

Bill! Get you one of these!!!! Watch this lil' dawg plant potatoes faster than anything!


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

LOL Well, IF I ever wanted a dog again, Hed be in the running.

At 70, im past hoein and schovelin taters.


----------



## CajunSunshine (Apr 24, 2007)

I don't blame you, Bill. Not with all the horrific problems your feet (and probably other parts) have been paining you with. 

That's what some of us get for playing too hard all these years, lol.


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

FarmboyBill said:


> LOL Well, IF I ever wanted a dog again, Hed be in the running.
> 
> At 70, im past hoein and schovelin taters.


One tower will get you only a token amount of potatoes to eat, as most tower builders will admit by not publishing their own results..... If you want a long lasting supply--say a hundred pounds--two hundred pounds....you'll have to build a lot of towers. That's also a lot of shoveling and toting and moving dirt. And your tower trials have already been failures......

I'm not understanding why you need somebody to run the tractor, nor why you need a lister. Do you have a water table problem and need to get them higher? Do you need a lister in order to hill them up in the row? For weed control, after they are hilled once, the spare grass/straw you have can cover them, and help get rid of late summer hoeing, at least.

OR, you can plow and disc one area and then scatter plant the seed pieces--then immediately cover them with the grass/straw you have--then all you'll have to do is give them water with a sprinkler. At the end of the season, just gently fork off the straw and they should be there, _if your ground is fertile_.

I think that trying to figure out why they constantly fail in towers, by failing one more time would be beating a dead horse--using muscles/resources you can't afford to waste...... Give yourself some success--and some good potatoes to eat. 

geo


----------



## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

I can't blame him for wanting to keep trying the towers (well I'm assuming by containers he's doing small scale towers) I failed last year but plan to try again this year... But I'll probably have a backup plan with some in the ground too after not having any luck last year. Will try to learn from my mistakes last year and see if I can do it better this year. The biggest issue for me is trying to fit as much as possible in a smallish scale garden. Going vertical takes less room, but I will probably clear some more field this year to go bigger on the garden.


----------



## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

The plan for my towers this year will be to add dirt to the towers as the plants emerge. Last year I filled the whole tower from the start and hoped the potatoes would grow out the sides. This year I will use less seed potatoes but get them to go up instead of out. It was a whole lot easier last year to lay a tarp down and knock the towers over and pick up the potatoes rather than shoveling them out of the ground. Part of my equation you touched on is crappy soil too, I'm solid clay that has been worked in traditional farming by a hack of a farmer for many years, he like probably most other traditional farmers did nothing to help the soil just relied on sprays to fertilize and kill weeds so my soil is stripped of anything good and left with just clay... I'm slowly improving it but it will still take a few years to really get good... We also decided to add all raised beds in the garden last year to get better soil for growing. Maybe a few years down the road our clay might be worth growing in again after several years of amendments.


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

For anyone: here are the basics of growing potatoes by Rodale. If you can get through the ads, it is worth the read. One thing a lot of potato "experts" claim--but which is not proven, at least to my knowledge and own experience, is that the placing, or stacking soil onto the stems as they grow upward will cause more tuber stolons to develop along the stem as it grows.. I cannot find any evidence that this actually happens in the real life garden or field. Once a stem breaks the soil surface it turns green and continues on up as a stem. It will not turn back into translucent stolon again. You prove this every time you hill or mound up soil around the stems--they don't return to the stolon stage. You might be able to keep covering the stems before they emerge--but then DNA will limit the actual number of potato stolons that might develop--and you might have to be in your potato patch 24/7 to keep them from emerging and turning green before you get them covered. No, the farmers have found the optimum allowance for stolon development is about four inches--that's how deep they set their furrows and planters. You could plant them deeper, but then, they would struggle to emerge through deeper soil.... (I'm surprised that Rodale perpetuates this old myth in the article, but they do say this method didn't prove to be worth the effort, and I'm equally surprised that someone in a lab coat somewhere isn't working on a genetic modification to "stretch" the stolon zone by an inch or two....)) The other fallacy would be that the more you cover the stem(s) you will cut off photosynthesis, which converts the sunlight into sucrose that makes the tubers grow. And the more you pile up the soil--other than hilling them once--you put the tubers that do develop nearly out of reach of the moisture they need--which in a tower or stack--YOU have to add. And putting more than one seed piece in a confined space just makes too much competition for nutrients and moisture--some of them are going to lose the struggle--or all of them will, and you'll get marbles.

If it were true on any practical basis, you would see piles of boards all over the potato fields, wouldn't you? I remember Paquetbot had a standing challenge for anyone to prove, at the harvest, that a tower(or stacked tires) could produce a hundred pounds of potatoes......

No magic bullets, no gimmicks, you have to _work with_ Mother Nature

https://www.rodalesorganiclife.com/garden/7-ways-grow-potatoes

geo


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

So Geo, U saying that theyre saying deep planting isn't necessary, and can be a problem? 4 to 6in is what I usually go down with my schovel plow, and then list them up with a lister. BOTH of which I have. NEITHER of which do I have operators for LOL.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I got a reply from one of the posts on U Tubes I watched, Im kibnda interested in trying. He says
put slips on top of 2in compost
NONE on top
streaw on top the slips to 2ft.
more straw once plant are above 1ft of the straw
eventually having straw, at settling around 2ft.
As you said, the taters don't grow through the straw OR soil upwards.
SO
Wheres this oldtimy thing that says, Taters don't grow down, they grow up???????


----------



## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

I tried potato towers for a few seasons. Never got the kind of claimed results. Only potatoes in the very bottom and nothing up higher.

WWW


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

FarmboyBill said:


> So Geo, U saying that theyre saying deep planting isn't necessary, and can be a problem? 4 to 6in is what I usually go down with my schovel plow, and then list them up with a lister. BOTH of which I have. NEITHER of which do I have operators for LOL.



Right. Deep planting isn't necessary BUT deep soil prep IS.


You have to prep the soil as deep as you can, especially in your new ground that is probably compacted , If you have a breaking plow behind your H, run it as deep as you can get it. Then use a disc or harrow to smooth the ground and get rid of large clods. You're ready to plant. I don't care how you do it, but make a furrow four inches deep and put your seed pieces in the bottom of it. Cover it back up. You're done until the plant comes up.

Looking at the picture shows you why. With the seed piece at the four inch level, the roots go down--and if they can't penetrate very deep, they quit and you get marbles. The tuber stolons branch out to the sides--above the seed piece. The stems grow upward.

When the stems break the surface, you can either mound up soil around them, or you can use piled straw around them. The mound of dirt and/or the straw serves to allow the developing tubers to slip and slide as they enlarge. It also covers them from the sun so they don't turn green with chlorophyll and make toxins that will taste bitter and make you hate potatoes and gravy for the rest of your life--if you recover..

In the fall, rake the straw back, or rake /spade the mounded soil back and gather treasures to fry up and to store for the winter eats.

There's no big deal about a container. Just fill it with at least a foot of loose and fertile soil, lay your seed pieces on top of that, and cover with four inches of soil. When the stems emerge, cover them again with about 6--8 inches of some more loose soil, or the same amount of straw. Keep well watered and in the fall you can pry the nails out of the container--or lift off the old ugly tires, or remove the wire sides, and gather your treasure. Just be sure to use no more than one seed piece per 1 1/2 square feet.

As cheap as potatoes are, anyone can go to the store and buy them, but I like the taste of the earth from my own soil when I sit down at the table.

Labor intensive? Yes, but I figure that's what God gave me arms and legs for.

geo


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Well, as stated, I don't want to plant in a row in the garden.


----------



## COSunflower (Dec 4, 2006)

FBB- Last summer I planted 3 different kinds of potatoes in tubs that I got at Walmart. I used leaves, worm compost, a little dirt and potting soil in the tubs. I planted the potato pieces 4 in. down and kept hilling as they came up. The MAIN problem that I had is that the leaves, compost and potting soil composted down during the season so that in the Fall there was only half the soil that I HAD under the plants!!! SOOOOO... Even though I had some potatoes, they were VERY small. This year Im going to plant some taters in one of the big muck buckets that I used last year for other veggies so that the soil wont compact. I can get big heavy duty duty muck buckets at the feed store for $10 and just drill holes in the bottom for drainage.Im only going to hill once this year also. When I hilled often last year it took forever for the plants to mature and I think that was a problem also.


----------



## Florida Steve (Jan 30, 2018)

FarmboyBill said:


> none of them showed BOTH the planting of, and the harvesting of the taters. Anybody have luck doing this?????????


Here's a 3 part series with some really good info:


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

FarmboyBill said:


> Well, as stated, I don't want to plant in a row in the garden.


I won't twist your arm; but that's why I put in my comments and recommendations for growing potatoes in containers, too.

For anyone else, the point I make is that you have to tailor your growing method to what the plant needs to grow and produce, whether in the ground or in some form of containment. For the potato, it's deep, fertile soil, so the roots can uptake nutrients. Seed pieces with an 18 inch diameter of growing space, Four inch covering of soil over the planted seed piece, then a covering or mounding over the emerging stems. Plenty of water and sunlight, side dressing at blossom time, and moisture to ground capacity during the bulking period. Keep the weeds out...

Meet those needs and you can grow them in a parachute, or an old lady's girdle, for all it matters...... Just don't expect miracles just because you surround them with boards....

geo


----------



## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

geo in mi said:


> For anyone: here are the basics of growing potatoes by Rodale. If you can get through the ads, it is worth the read. One thing a lot of potato "experts" claim--but which is not proven, at least to my knowledge and own experience, is that the placing, or stacking soil onto the stems as they grow upward will cause more tuber stolons to develop along the stem as it grows.. I cannot find any evidence that this actually happens in the real life garden or field. Once a stem breaks the soil surface it turns green and continues on up as a stem. It will not turn back into translucent stolon again. You prove this every time you hill or mound up soil around the stems--they don't return to the stolon stage. You might be able to keep covering the stems before they emerge--but then DNA will limit the actual number of potato stolons that might develop--and you might have to be in your potato patch 24/7 to keep them from emerging and turning green before you get them covered. No, the farmers have found the optimum allowance for stolon development is about four inches--that's how deep they set their furrows and planters. You could plant them deeper, but then, they would struggle to emerge through deeper soil.... (I'm surprised that Rodale perpetuates this old myth in the article, but they do say this method didn't prove to be worth the effort, and I'm equally surprised that someone in a lab coat somewhere isn't working on a genetic modification to "stretch" the stolon zone by an inch or two....)) The other fallacy would be that the more you cover the stem(s) you will cut off photosynthesis, which converts the sunlight into sucrose that makes the tubers grow. And the more you pile up the soil--other than hilling them once--you put the tubers that do develop nearly out of reach of the moisture they need--which in a tower or stack--YOU have to add. And putting more than one seed piece in a confined space just makes too much competition for nutrients and moisture--some of them are going to lose the struggle--or all of them will, and you'll get marbles.
> 
> If it were true on any practical basis, you would see piles of boards all over the potato fields, wouldn't you? I remember Paquetbot had a standing challenge for anyone to prove, at the harvest, that a tower(or stacked tires) could produce a hundred pounds of potatoes......
> 
> ...


I can assure you they are working on it. My wife (who is a research assistant at MSU in plant biology/horticulture departments) worked on some genome mapping for the people who are working on potato projects.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Fla Steve. THANKS ALOT for the vids. Learned a lot from them. Wished youda added the harvest vid also.
So, according to him, SOME variaties of taters DO grow upward through the dirt or straw.


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

If you do the exact things he does, you'll get 31 pounds out of four containers too.

geo


----------



## Florida Steve (Jan 30, 2018)

FarmboyBill said:


> Fla Steve. THANKS ALOT for the vids. Learned a lot from them. Wished youda added the harvest vid also.
> So, according to him, SOME variaties of taters DO grow upward through the dirt or straw.


I'm glad you enjoyed the videos, sorry I thought I included the harvest video...I know there is one.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

30lbs would be plenty enough for me.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

That was 30lbs for 4 buckets. They planted 12 buckets, so they likely made over 100lbs.


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

FarmboyBill said:


> Fla Steve. THANKS ALOT for the vids. Learned a lot from them. Wished youda added the harvest vid also.
> So, according to him, SOME variaties of taters DO grow upward through the dirt or straw.



According to him only. Nowhere have I seen any validated proof of that. One amateur gardener, even a good one at that, with a Sharpie, doesn't make it true. But you are more than welcome to use as many buckets as you wish--and you will probably do well, as long as you follow his recipe. Keep in mind that he did not say he planted them according to the signs of the moon......

Once again, Paquetbot is right--no one yet has shown that you can get 100 pounds out of a container.......7 pounds per bucket doesn't even come close.

geo


----------



## Clem (Apr 12, 2016)

Here's a video I made about 10 years ago. I took it off Youtube, because the comments were getting out of hand. Several people had copied the video, and reposted it. I've always informed Youtube, and the video would be taken down. anyway, I found one copy somebody saved and posted. Note that this was about 10 years ago, I'd learned that you're not going to have more than 6" of producing above the seed piece. No matter what people say about a ton of taters in a 6' tower. 

Incidentally, this video was taken when I weighed about a hundred pounds more than I do now. So, a fat guy huffing and puffing. At any rate, this method made life pretty easy for me, as far as potatoes go, and I still use the same method. It is embarassing for me to look at myself with all that extra weight, but it's a learning experience, I guess.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Geo, I thought of the moon factor also. There are containers and there are containers. I planned to use 3 doors and a couple


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

3 doors, maybe r in a square.
Clem, nice to heah a voice connected to a name


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Dang. 3 doors, maybe 4


----------



## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

It looked like you got like 6 potatoes per bucket. Doesn't seem like a very good yield but it is easier than digging in the ground... So now you don't dig down you just set the potato on top and put the bucket over it to grow?


----------



## Clem (Apr 12, 2016)

I flip over the bucket to get the potatoes, instead of digging in the blazing Carolina sun. Yep.

I've seen a lot of potatoes grown and I can tell you that in this part of the country, you're going to get a couple larger ones, couple middle sized ones, and a few little bitty ones. It's in the nature of potatoes. As to whether or not it's a good yield, remember the part where I said how much I paid, and how many plants I got($4 and 120 buckets)? I don't plant the whole potato, it's the eyes that are a new plant. So, there may be 6 or 10, or any other number of eyes per potato. Furthermore, I eat the potato after I cut out the eyes, too.

So, for 4 bucks, I had 5 pounds of potatoes to eat after cutting out the eyes, and more or less 120 pounds of potatoes that I didn't have to dig up.


----------



## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

For FBB I think that might be the best solution, the no dig piece of it. That's a good benefit too just growing the eyes cut out not wasting the entire potato. I'm going to go toss some out in my hoop house right now... Don't have dirt in the hoop house yet but raked all my leaves and have some potting soil in the greenhouse so maybe I'll just cover them with a bit of potting soil then leaves and see if the hoop house is warm enough to start growing them now in January


----------



## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

Oops it's February now


----------



## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

No more than two eyes per hole so you don't have too many plants competing for the same nutrients.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Dad, Id think IF ya didn't cut away most of the tater to eat after getting the slips cut out, that that would leave more meat for more eyes to produce. Whatcha think?
I just called the Nowata Okla Extension service. They had to do some hunting to find the answer, BUTT
Determinate potatoes stay on the bottom at or near the slip. They are a faster grower than interDs, but produce less taters.
Interdeterminate taters grow ALL UP THE MAIN STEM/TRUNK OF THE PLANT, and yield MORE than determinate varities do.
Determinate varities are Red Pontiac and Yukon Gold, amongst others.


----------



## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

I don't eat my seed potatoes, I just cut them in chunks with a couple eyes and toss them in the hole. I save half a five gallon bucket in my feed room with a couple feed sacks over them for the following year. Been doing it just like that for the 8 years I've planted them, it's like free potatoes every year. The first year I didn't even mound them because I didn't know any better and still go a lot of potatoes. You should be able to get 30lbs of potatoes easy with all the rain you get


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

ALL THE RAIN I GET???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
They say were in the worst drouth since the depression.
I just called Jungs and RH Shumway, and Burgess nurserys, as that's the only catalogs I have. NONE OF THEM recognize that potatoes are I or ID. I did find a tater seed house online, so I guess thatl work. I called Lowes, and they have R Russets and Y Gold. The YG I may go with as ive found that they are good almost all ways


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I think, if I was growing in rows, id rather have them growing fast and towards the bottom
Growing in containers, I think id rather have them take longer, but have a bigger harvest.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Dang Clem. Them buckets bring $3-4 with tax for a 5 gal bucket. U got 120 of them. MAn that's A WHALE OF A BUNCHA MONEY.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

These doors I got are beautiful. They cost Tween $5 and 10 bucks each. Got 2 where my sliding glass door was, and got 4 more stashed in the house. Guess Ill get about setting them up.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Man If I had his barn where he usta live in town, and he had his Fla place, Wed both be tickled. lol


----------



## Clem (Apr 12, 2016)

People near here make those storage buildings and will not only give you buckets free, but even bring them to you. Of course, you got to clean out the paint in the bottom. I've got hundreds of them stacked up down in the woods. I may never get to use them all, some are starting to get brittle, the summers are so rough. 

I also have hundred or more 55 gallon barrels, from when the food repackaging company was getting everything in food grade 55 gallon drums. Now everything comes in plastic bags inside cardboard drums. Good for burning, maybe.


----------



## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

I'd start ID at the bottom of your containers. As they grow add compost until the container is full. You'l have potatoes all the way through the container.
I had good luck planting potatoes, then adding an old tire and compost, then another tire and more compost. I could get three or four tires stacked up, full of dirt and compost. In the fall, take the tires off and pick through the compost to harvest.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Well I got my tater bin up yesterday, the 3rd. Got snow today. Broke the last joint of my little finger, left hand when a T post dropped on it.


----------



## sammyd (Mar 11, 2007)

Just work your soil good and deep and place your seed potatoes on the ground in rows and mulch them good. Keep adding mulch through the season and rake it away when it's time to harvest. 
My folks have been doing it for years and it's the only way we've done it here. Very acceptable yields.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

I wanted to take the tumblebug and haul a load of dirt over to the bin and pitch it in. Got snow yesterday and the grounds frozen now and will be all week.


----------



## dyrne (Feb 22, 2015)

You're thinking of something like this? I have seen people discuss this method and I will probably try it this year

1. Plant potatoes in container with some small amount of soil
wait
2. As they grow keep adding soil every once in a while covering the emerging stems
wait
3. harvest

Supposedly you end up with gazillions of potatoes because they continuously form new tubers as the stem gets covered with more soil.


----------



## Clem (Apr 12, 2016)

A potato will do what its DNA is designed to do. No matter what sort of fantasy you read on the internet.


----------



## dyrne (Feb 22, 2015)

Clem said:


> A potato will do what its DNA is designed to do. No matter what sort of fantasy you read on the internet.


Is this directed to my post? I would think the response of an efficient plant when it's stem becomes covered in soil would be to send out roots.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

appariantly not. The roots from a tater come out from the slip itself. Now, roots, and shoots are different things, and yes some taters, the interdeterminate kinds do put out shoots that form into taters.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Cant argue with your statement Clem


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

dyrne said:


> Is this directed to my post? I would think the response of an efficient plant when it's stem becomes covered in soil would be to send out roots.


*Solanum lycopersicum, the tomato plant cousin of the potato, will do that, but not the potato.* Every serious potato researcher I can find, indicates that the stolons grow on the same shoot or sprout from the seed piece, but once that sprout emerges from the soil, it becomes green and turns into the foliage stem of the plant(with the stolon tuber stems underground). The section of the stem underground is limited by DNA to about four inches underground, and once the stem turns green from chlorophyll, it will not return to the translucent stolon type of stem if it gets covered up.

Only one situation is left that MIGHT, MAYBE, PERHAPS make more stolon growth is to cover up the stem BEFORE it emerges through the soil, but that section of underground stem material will be limited by DNA---and no one, to my knowledge, has tried that. Why? Nobody is going to stay out in the potato patch 24/7 to make sure it doesn't see light and turn green. AND, without a green stem and leaves, you won't get any potatoes anyway. 

You can cover up your stems day and night as far as I am concerned, and you'll probably get a few potatoes--but not gobs and mounds like you hear in the internet gospel. Thankfully, the potato is very forgiving. After seeing this similar thread come up year after year, with no evidence---only modest results--at harvest time, I can only conclude that God created the potato so that even fools won't go hungry.

Clem is right.

geo


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

As to your last sentence, Good one Geo LOL lol


----------



## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

Lots of plants put out roots from the stems. All of the dwarfing apple rootstocks are propagated that way. So are raspberries, blackberries and grapes.
I guess in my many years of growing potatoes, I could have been fooled. I greatly increased my yields by adding a couple tires around a potato plant and filling it with compost. I'd cover the bottom third of the plant. In the fall, I'd roll off the tires and collect a bountiful harvest. I always assumed that the lower stem put out tuber bearing roots. But if that taint so, then I'll have to assume that the added depth of compost increased the moisture and nutrients for the existing roots as the reason for the increased size and yield. If that's the case, Bill could start his potatoes at the bottom of the containers and add to it as the potato grows and then potatoes will form at the bottom and continue to put roots and potatoes into the added compost. That seems to be an effective way to increase yields. In a field setting, potatoes could be planted in a V ditch and soil added around the plants, early on, as the plants grew.


----------



## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

If you could maximize profits with these gimmicks you'd think the commercial potato growers would be doing it. I plant mine in rows just like these photos, mine are just much shorter.

https://www.google.com/search?q=com...qpTZAhXS0J8KHSHHCiYQ_AUIDCgD&biw=1120&bih=627


----------



## geo in mi (Nov 14, 2008)

haypoint said:


> Lots of plants put out roots from the stems. All of the dwarfing apple rootstocks are propagated that way. So are raspberries, blackberries and grapes.
> I guess in my many years of growing potatoes, I could have been fooled. I greatly increased my yields by adding a couple tires around a potato plant and filling it with compost. I'd cover the bottom third of the plant. In the fall, I'd roll off the tires and collect a bountiful harvest. I always assumed that the lower stem put out tuber bearing roots. But if that taint so, then I'll have to assume that the added depth of compost increased the moisture and nutrients for the existing roots as the reason for the increased size and yield. If that's the case, Bill could start his potatoes at the bottom of the containers and add to it as the potato grows and then potatoes will form at the bottom and continue to put roots and potatoes into the added compost. That seems to be an effective way to increase yields. In a field setting, potatoes could be planted in a V ditch and soil added around the plants, early on, as the plants grew.


If Bill wants to grow potatoes in containers, the man with the YouTube blue buckets showed him the way. He used very rich, composted, loose soil about a foot deep, laid the seed pieces on it and then began covering them with up to another foot to foot and a half of the same, very rich compost. Because his soil was rich and loose, the water he added continually perced down into the root zone, taking the water soluble nutrients down with it, and allowing the roots to uptake them as they took up the water.. Not only does that make bigger tubers, it also maximizes the branching of the stolons that are there, making it possible for more tubers per stolon. Also, the continued watering helps all three of the stolon sets to grow--not just the first and second ones... More potatoes. Also, remember that his leaf areas were huge--making more photosynthesis to create sucrose, the main ingredient of the final ingredients of the finished potato tubers.

You have probably had the same situation as you added tires and more rich compost. And it is the same when you grow potatoes in rows. Seed pieces four inches deep, good loose and rich root zone, and lots of equally rich composted soil on top. Lots of water after flowering to bulk up the tubers. Even a side dressing with nitrogen at blossom time to add to the bulking process. The good soil on top was needed, as your bigger and more plentiful tubers slipped into place and stayed covered from the sunlight.

We could never grow potatoes in the Indiana clay soil--but we didn't think to add composted soil in the trench, nor did we use some loose straw or hay instead of hilling them with added soil. Plus we didn't water them. And so, we grew marbles......I have a feeling that the Kansas soil on Bill's place is that way--pretty poor, compacted and depleted. But I think he will do okay if he follows the blue bucket YouTube. He'll at least get something to eat......  

geo


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

When in Kansas Geo I used a schovel plow, wife and tractor to make the rows. When it dcame time to lift them, I used a lister, wife and tractor to do that. Worked fine.
Don't have wife now, and live in Okla so im doing the container thing with 3 doors. 2 not cut, and the end one cut in 1/2.


----------



## haypoint (Oct 4, 2006)

oneraddad said:


> If you could maximize profits with these gimmicks you'd think the commercial potato growers would be doing it


I think my method of adding a couple old tires per plant would be a bit labor intensive on a thousand acre potato patch. But, from the photo you selected, do you think those raised beds were there at planting time or was the dirt piled up each time the field was cultivated?
I have seen potatoes poke out of the ground and turn green and bitter. Wouldn't adding soil or compost as the season progressed eliminate that waste?


----------



## oneraddad (Jul 20, 2010)

I make a mounded row as seen in the link with landscape fabric and straw then plant a chunk of potato with 2-3 eyes 6" deep and water. That's it until I harvest, you can put more effort if you like but I get more potatoes than I can eat. If mounding tires made farmers money we'd see tires stacked all over Idaho and I don't.

Just google "commercial potato farms images" and see how many tires you see


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Dad, I think tires, and containers, and even doors as im using have to do with homesteaders having SMALL areas and trying to utilize the space as much as possible,
How long are your 3 rows anyway??


----------



## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

FarmboyBill said:


> Dad, I think tires, and containers, and even doors as im using have to do with homesteaders having SMALL areas and trying to utilize the space as much as possible,
> How long are your 3 rows anyway??


+1 that's my main concern. I have room I could expand to more field, but I'm trying to fit everything in the 50x50 garden area we have cleared. If I wanted to "do more work" as was suggested then I would clear another area of field to expand my garden, but that means I need to improve the soil in another area as well, which is a lot more work than trying to grow potatoes in a vertical tower with localized improved dirt. I'm moving dirt either way but with a tower I'm not rototilling and digging clay.

I'm not sure from Rad's description, are you saying you dig a trench then just cover the potatoes with straw and landscape fabric so to harvest you just move the landscape fabric and straw no dirt to dig? That might be something to try if that's the case.

Sent from my XT1650 using Homesteading Today mobile app


----------



## wy_white_wolf (Oct 14, 2004)

I found out that the only person I know that got this to work added more seed potatoes every time he built up the soil.

WWW


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

Whether Dads doing it that way or not, Its being done and has been done for a long time. Its doable.


----------



## FarmboyBill (Aug 19, 2005)

hmmm wolf. Never heered of that. Don't see why it wouldn't work, IF you could keep the mound high enough. Yes, in a container, but I have my doubts in a row on the ground.


----------



## rininger85 (Feb 29, 2016)

The tower I tried last year suggested just that, you have several layers of seed potatoes. There are a number of reasons why I don't think mine did great last year that I think I already mentioned (used chicken wire will switch to welded wire for more strength to keep the tower upright, used leaves will switch to straw, had a very dry summer and potatoes were on outskirts of the garden so only one side of towers got watered).

Sent from my XT1650 using Homesteading Today mobile app


----------

