My Potato Tower Project

During the summer of 2018, I made an attempt to grow potatoes in 5 Gallon buckets. I had recently decided to garden seriously and after a little research, (the word "little" is a keyword here), I gathered some information about growing potatoes, bought a few buckets, haphazardly bought a few potatoes from a local garden center and I thought I was in great shape. Oops!

Online Resources

I found a GREAT resource on youtube that you should familiarize yourself with. If I made a post or video copying their information, it would be a waste of time and effort. Their videos, Hollis & Nancy's Homestead, are complete and VERY informative chock full of relevant information free of fluff. Specifically, Hollis created three videos that every wannabe potato grower should watch, HD How To Grow Potatoes In Containers (Part 1, 2, 3). I think the third video is the best one because it describes what I am trying to do. Kudos to Hollis and Nancy for taking time to create such complete, wonderful resources.

Well, when I bought my potatoes for the 5 Gallon buckets I thought that potatoes are just potatoes. You buy seed potatoes, bury them in the ground, water them, and then pick them. WRONG! You should watch Holli's videos to learn about potatoes.



Another great resource is Fedco Seeds. They have a nifty potato variety chart that you should familiarize yourself with. Also, they have a catalog in PDF format for ordering onions and potatoes that is very helpful too. Please visit Hollis's youtube and Fedco links because they will save you lots of time and money.

Evan's Historical Reference

In the early 80s, I attended classes at Erie Community College in New York. There I took a required sociology class with, (I hope I remember his name correctly), Dr. Kolbe. During a class he showed us a video of a lady that grew vegetables in a different way. You should take time and research her name, Ruth Stout. She wrote several books, (most are out of print), and there are two videos of the particular film that Dr. Kolbe showed in class (first video, second video). Originally it was made in film and someone converted it to video.

Ruth Stout was named the "queen of mulch" and her kind of gardening required no tilling, no weeding, no watering, and many other nos. She named her type of gardening "gardening for the lazy".

Unfortunately, Ruth Stout has passed away but her legacy will live on forever. When I saw the movie it made such an impression on me because of her approach to growing vegetables. If you are not intrigued by her no-watering approach, well, you are a glutton for punishment.

I am starting to use Ruth Stout's method for growing everything in our garden. Specifically, for the potato tower, I will use German Butterball organic from Fedco. These potatoes are indeterminate and that means that they will take about 90 days to harvest and they are perfect for potato towers. Period!

Putting everything together

Here is the exact order from Fedco: #7360 - German Butterball organic (10.0) 1 x $20.00 = $20.00. Basically I bought 10 pounds of potatoes at $20 per pound. The item number (this year) is #7360.

I have seen so many online videos where people are perplexed with the poor results after planting the wrong potatoes in a potato tower. I made the same mistake when I planted potatoes in the 5 Gallon buckets.

First I built a 6 ft by 6 ft box with some leftover pine we had laying around. I filled the box with about 6" of mulch and woodchips. 

I mixed the mulch and woodchips and then leveled the mix. We had a roll of heavy wire fencing. I used it to create a circular structure about 5 foot in diameter. The mixture of mulch and woodchips was just beautiful. I have access to lots of wood chips after we felled a monstrous pin oak tree.

Then I positioned this fence on top of the mulch, but as you can see, it wasn't perfectly positioned. It needed to be 2-3 incher to the left. Next year I will reposition it. I made sure the fencing seam was in the middle of one of the sides of the frame. This would ensure easier harvesting.

I added two metal posts and attached the fence frame with wire to make sure it doesn't fly away when the wind is blowing hard. Here I made a tiny error. I should have added the two posts inside the tower and not outside. If it were inside, I would not need extra wire to attach the post to the metal frame.

After the frame was complete I started to add hay. I bought six bales of hay from a local farmer. He had several bales that could not be sold as animal feed and I bought them from him for $2 per bale. 

Here is the tower almost filled with hay as per Ruth Stout's recommendation. She strongly recommended starting the mulching process in the fall of the previous year because the rain and snow would work wonders and reduce the hay and prepare it for planting in the following spring. This picture was taken in mid-October of 2018. Now all I have to do is wait...

Here is a picture taken in mid-December of 2018. As you can see, the volume of hay has been reduced by about 50%. Also, I added hay between the wire fence and the wood frame because I would like to plant some type of low-lying vegetables there.

In a couple of months the seed potatoes from Fedco will be delivered and I will have to set them up inside the house and prepare them for planting. The tower will be processed in such a way that would ensure maximum yields, of course, if the weather permits and we don't have any strange weather conditions.

Stay tuned for potato tower updates.