Gardening Question #2

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timfromohio

Minister of Fire
Aug 20, 2007
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OK guys - I got such good input on my last question I thought I'd post another dealing with potatoes and sweet potatoes. Last year we grew potatoes for the first time in rows. Worked out fine except yield was a bit low due to the poor quality soil (see Garden Question #1 on that topic). Next year, I'm going to experiment and grow some potatoes in buckets - probably 5 gallon size. Uber easy - to hill, just add a shovel or two full of dirt. At harvest time, dump bucket into wheelbarrow, collect potatoes, done. Yields I've seen are better than potato towers, but not quite as good as those grown in straw mulch. Still want to try it.

So, do you guys think food-grade buckets would be necessary? If so, where's the cheapest they can be found. I'm thinking a homebrewing store might have them, but that would be a dangerous place to enter from an expenditure standpoint!

Thanks for any advice/opinions.

PS - Some cool links about growing potatoes:

http://onestraw.wordpress.com/2009/10/27/tech/

http://livingthefrugallife.blogspot.com/2009/09/potato-buckets-experimental-yields.html
 
We have not tried this method but have read about it in several publications. You use hardware cloth to fashion a "barrel" with a diameter of your choice. You "hill" your potatoes the same way you referenced in your post but you can hill them to your heart's content since the hardware cloth is considerably wider, more on the order of a large trash barrel, thus giving you more height than a 5 gallon bucket would. It also allows wonderful drainage and if you wish to retain more moisture you can mulch up around the outside of the container to accomplish it.

We have not grown potatoes here, interestingly. Nor do we bother with corn.

This has been a fantastic year for Brussel Sprouts and cabbages, though! Mmmm.
 
Bobbin - thanks for the suggestion. I have read of something like this with old tires, but the hardware cloth sounds better. Northeastern Maine used to be the potato capital of the country, right? Arostook county (spelling?)
 
The home brew shop would have buckets for sure, but they'd be new and probably fairly expensive... Also the brew shop buckets are often a larger than 5g size (more like 6-7g) in order to allow for headroom on a 5 gallon batch of brew...

What I would suggest is going to restaraunts, donut shops, cafeterias, etc. and asking there - they will get a lot of their stuff in 5 gallon buckets, and often will be glad to have someone willing to take them away... Probably not relevant for tater growing, but a couple of minor points on 5 gallon buckets -

#1 They will pick up flavor / odors from what was in them originally - be wary of buckets originally used for strongly flavored foods.
#2 There are subtle differences in the design and sizing of the buckets from different companies, and a lid from company A will probably not fit or seal well on a bucket from company B... This isn't a big deal in most cases, as both lids and buckets (look on the bottom of the buckets) will have the bucket manufacturer stamped on the bottom, just make sure they match... If you have the luxury of choice, it is easiest if you get all the same brand.

Gooserider
 
timfromohio said:
Bobbin - thanks for the suggestion. I have read of something like this with old tires, but the hardware cloth sounds better. Northeastern Maine used to be the potato capital of the country, right? Arostook county (spelling?)
Click to expand...

Aroostook County, yeah used to be the capital, back in the '50s i think. Haven't grown my own potatoes(in garden) for probably 10yrs. Just row 'em. Just didn't have the time. Used to go out behind the harvestors and pick what they dropped. Never tried the bucket method. Looking to do tomatoes and other veggies indoors, winter time experiment. Good thread for me to follow. BTW , grew up on a potato farm, love the smell of the potato dirt. Nothing like having a potato fight while picking for the fall harvest. AHHH the painful memories of childhood. %-P
 
Potato fights sound painful - I'm surprised my sons didn't think of that. They seem to have innate knowledge of most forms of combat ....

Gooserider - good idea. I was planning on stopping at a coffee shop on my way home from work (pass every day) to find out if I can get their used coffee grounds anyway.

Also - do you guys think you could grow sweet potatoes in buckets as well?
 
Potatoes in buckets sounds like a lot more work than in the ground, but I have read that growing sweet potatoes in buckets is better than in the ground because the restricted space causes the sweet potatoes to form bigger roots. I have grown sweet potatoes in buckets myself, and they did work out better than the ones in the ground I have tried, but central PA is not really hot enough for long enough to grow good sweet potatoes, at least that is how it seems to me.

I grow potatoes in the ground, and although I don't have good soil I get reasonable yields. I plant them in a trench maybe 8 or 10 inches deep, place the potatoes on the bottom, and fill an inch or so over the potatoes. As the plants grow, I fill around them with the soil until I run out of the soil I removed from the trench. I mulch between ros and right up against the plants with lawn clippings, and that is about it until I harvest. I think it is less work than most other vegetables, and my yields are decent.
 
Wood Duck - I'm glad to know I can try sweet potatoes in buckets as well. My soil is very clay-rich and can dry out easily. I grew potatoes for the first time last year - mulched with grass clippings, but the soil was so dry that it was a real pain to try and hill properly. I wound up going out and buying a couple yards of soil/sand mix to hill with - native soil was/is that bad. I want to devote the space I did grow potatoes in to beans or something that will grow regardless of the poor soil quality. I'm working hard at improving the soil, but this will take a few years.
 
If you have one in your area, get some manure from a dairy farmer. Put on at least 6 inches or more, rototill in. It won't smell, but just for a short time. Do it now and it will break down into the soil over winter. Spring, the smell should be gone and the nutrients are broken down and in the soil good. I try to do this every fall. The fresher the better, if its composted manure, the nutrients are all gone, or at least alot of 'em are.
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A lot better, for many reasons, than doing it in the spring.-

-One big plus with the manure, does not dry out the soil, just the opposite. Holds the moisture. Used to be said that cow manure was bad for potatoes(scabbing), but not so. Be careful with grass clippings and of the sort. Really acidic, I think.
 
We don't grow regular potatoes. We did once, we eat lots of potatoes, but the homegrown don't taste any better than store bought and you can buy a 10# sack for less than a dollar. We found that there is no real benefit to growing regular spuds, use that space and water for something yummy like tomatoes or green beans. Sweet potatoes might be better than regular spuds.

It's good to know you can grow potatoes jsut because they are a staple.
 
Don't know why you couldn't grow any crop you wanted in a bucket that was properly set up...

Gooserider
 
flyingcow said:
[
Aroostook County, yeah used to be the capital, back in the '50s i think. Haven't grown my own potatoes(in garden) for probably 10yrs. Just row 'em. Just didn't have the time. Used to go out behind the harvestors and pick what they dropped. Never tried the bucket method. Looking to do tomatoes and other veggies indoors, winter time experiment. Good thread for me to follow. BTW , grew up on a potato farm, love the smell of the potato dirt. Nothing like having a potato fight while picking for the fall harvest. AHHH the painful memories of childhood. %-P
Click to expand...
1930s would be closer I think, as many as 10,000 train car loads of taters a month came out the "county" back then.
 
Tim I grew about 60 lbs of sweet potatoes from 25 slips in central NH this summer and it was pretty poor for warm weather crops this year here, too wet and cold.

I used a Japanese method of making two ~25 foot long rows side by side mounded up to about a foot high in the center and covered with black plastic. The plastic really helps keep the soil warm and holds in moisture and keeps out weeds. They're easier to harvest this way too. Much less digging. It also keeps the sweet potato vines from re-rooting as they run out.

Beauregard and Georgia Jet were the varieties I used. They are roughly 90-100 days. ~70 percent of the tubers looked like any you would see in a store, another 20% were numerous but small and the other 10% were freakishly big. We had two that were the size of Nerf footballs and weighed over two lbs each. My soil sounds like yours so this might work for you.
 
Burn-1 - Thanks for the suggestion. We'll consider that for next year. If you can grow sweet potatoes in NH, I'm sure we can in NEOhio.
 
We've grown potatoes over the last few years in traditional rows, in tires, and 'Tater Towers'(http://henandharvest.com/?p=586). The only thing we haven't tried yet is making wire fence towers (like a compost pile).

We've tried all the fancy potatoes, reds, blues, various whites, but now mostly just grow Red Pontiacs and Kennebecs. Kennebecs (and other Keeper varieties) can keep all winter in the basement.

All methods work to grow potatoes.

Traditional rows:
Easy to plant, easy to hill. Hard to harvest...lots of digging stooped over in cold dirt(we don't harvest till around thanksgiving right before the ground freezes solid). Supposedly, that row in the garden can't be used for taters (or tomatoes) for a couple years to avoid disease. Yields ok. Don't need to water as much as other methods. Takes alot of nutrients out of the soil, so taters should be the last crop in a rotation before going fallow for a season. I don't use method this anymore as we don't have enough room to let a row go empty for that long. In the other methods described below the tater dirt goes into the compost pile for a couple years to recharge nutrients.

Tires:
Used tires are free. I was a little concerned with gunk leaching from the tires, but read enough about tires used in gardening(google it) to feel comfortable that I'm not getting anything but maybe zinc which is beneficial in potatoes. Just scrub them real well, rinse, scrub, rinse. I washed ours with Simple Green.

In tires it is easy to plant, easy to harvest, can be done anywhere(on the driveway, poor/rocky soil, etc). When done, harvesting is easy as picking up the tire, dropping on a tarp to empty the dirt, picking out taters. Yields are okay. Don't believe what you read on the web and bother stacking more than a couple tires tall... we've only ever found potatoes in the bottom or 2nd tires. None ever in the third. Needs to be watered more often than in rows as the towers dry out quick.

Wood Towers:
This was our first year with towers. Cost $ to buy wood if you don't have it, takes time to build. Yield was poor, harvest is easy. I won't do this again.

I tried one other method this year. I filled in the sides of two large stones with half rotten old landscaping timbers and filled with dirt. The vines grew okay, I haven't harvested yet to determine yield.
see pic: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_gXZ1lIGFdLY/Su94KIpvBXI/AAAAAAAABB0/kHK1f2pZoGg/s1600-h/0616090658.jpg

Summary:
I think we are going to switch to 100% tire-taters from now on because I can plant in otherwise unsuitable places(on top of rocks, in the driveway, etc), and harvest is super easy. Many of the local farmers have also switched over to tire-taters for the same reasons unless they have machinery to harvest traditional rows.

Here is an article from the Oil Drum about growing potatoes. http://www.energybulletin.net/node/50555

Economics aside, I get a huge amount of satisfaction knowing that we now grow almost 100% of our potatoes for a year. It's the only staple crop that anyone can reasonably grow almost anywhere.

As an aside, my favorite meal of the year is venison tenderloins pan fried in butter, with just-dug red potatoes, green beans or braised chard from the garden, and homebrew. There is nothing better.
 
I know that potatoes are cheap, but I have to say the ones we grew this past year (Yukon Gold and Kennebuc) were far superior in taste to any of the cheap potatoes we've purchased in the store. However, even if I could buy ones that were equally as tasty and cheap I'd still want to grow my own. I want my kids to know where their food comes from and understand how to produce some of their own.
 
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