Our potato box was productive.

[Mr Kleb]

Early this year Faye read about this method of growing potatoes. You build a frame about 3' on a side. Work your ground up, put your potato starters in, and place the frame so your potato patch is enclosed in it. As the vines grow you add a layer of boards and some straw, vines grow so more boards, more straw, and so on. The vines are confined in the box and therefore don't sprawl out. We didn't plant a lot of starters (I think six?) or expend any real effort on this crop as this was an experiment. I think we watered them once during an extended dry spell. That was basically all the care we provided.

Today I removed the boards and began digging. That basket holds around ten lbs. of potatoes. Not a lot yet the experiment was quite successful. And the earth I dug into was very friable, full of organic matter, earthworms and other good stuff. Think we may try this again next year.

[Halcyon]

Great harvest! Interesting trick. We grow potatoes in our garden and one of the ways we do it is by mounding the soil around the potato. This encourages more potatoes to grow.

[janedoe]

Very nice! We need to do that.

[Georgie]

congrats !

[Snowshoe]

No one I know personally has had any success with that. You are the first. They look like Chieftain potatoes? Which are easy growers, here they are. Maybe we should try that, wonder how Yukon Gold would do? Here we are not so much space challenged as water and sun challenged.

[Blackboy98]

Great harvest for the amount of time, effort, etc. Good idea on the box to expand as the vines grow. I think I will try next year.

[bett]

wow

i am impressed.

[Scoutpout]

interesting... hadn't heard of that before, i like that the box also keeps the vines from taking over the rest of the garden. Love the taste of "new" potatoes.

Growing up, 2 fields up the road was a potato field. This time of year, after the harvesting machine went through, we were allowed to go in and pick what we wanted. Mum never bought potatoes, we had enough from picking thru the dirt after the mechanical harvester to last us, literally bags of them (the big burlap feed bags), off they went into the fruit cellar for the winter.

[POPTOP]

Great harvest for the amount of space.

We done potatoes many times but they do take up the entire garden. Your technique is intriguing. The most I put in is 6. We've done white, purple, Yukon gold and fingerling potatoes, all to show the kids. The first time they were amazed. Kids today don't know where their food comes from. No potatoes this year, the garden is taken up with pumpkins.

We start by planting them in "hills" and continue to mound more earth periodically.

Scoutpout: Commercial growers leave so much behind. I've done the same thing with tomato fields. There is a group called Second Harvest, I think mainly in CA, who have volunteers who go in and pick after commercial growers are finished. They supply tons of fresh food to those who don't have.

[Laura]

Nice harvest! I've never grown potatoes, but I think I'd like to try out your method.