Potato Towers Harvest #3

June 30, 2016Katie

This weekend we dumped over one of the Potato Towers.

We dumped it onto a tarp so that we could put the dirt/straw into the compost afterward and keep it off the ground. And then we started sifting through the jumbled pile for potatoes.

Hello red potato!

Now I must confess, I was a tad disappointed in the quantity we picked up. While it seemed like every seed potato piece had sprouted and produced a plant, many of them only had one or two potatoes on them.

After reading the instructions on potato towers, I had in mind that I might get at a minimum twenty pounds of potatoes per tower.

However, this was our entire haul of this tower.

So as any good gardener does, we ponder…

*Did we plant in the correct location for sun and water?

*Should we have let them grow for a longer time period?

*What should we have done differently?

Got any suggestions?

All in all, we are going to enjoy fresh organic red potatoes tonight so I am happy.

I just wish there were more!

For a brief video showing our harvesting check it out below!

To read about planting and constructing the towers read my previous posts:

Potato Towers #1

Potato Towers #2

9 Comments

Liz

May 10, 2020 at 9:19 am

Did you ever figure out how to get a better harvest?

1. Katie
  
  June 16, 2020 at 11:42 am
  
  No we've not tried again this year.
  
Robbie

April 1, 2021 at 11:10 am

I did tried the experiment too. I did the same method, with seed potatoes but left them in the ground longer. I also fertilized regularly. I got approx 10 lbs out of one tower. I tried the next year, but the plants got a fungus (hit entire garden) after allot of rain. I will be trying again. I am going to try the one layer and add soil as the plants grow. Of course this will be in addition to the tried and true method. Great post.

Sapphire

May 21, 2021 at 12:26 am

What kind of soil or fertilizer did you use? Phosphorus and potassium supposedly help them produce lots. I'm thinking of trying a couple towers next year and dumping some rock dust and banana peels in there when I plant them. Growing up, we dumped wood ash on them, but I know that can mess with the ph and I live in a totally different location and soil type compared to where I grew up. So I'm going to try the rock dust and banana peels first in my new home.

1. Katie
  
  June 3, 2021 at 12:22 pm
  
  Sapphire - I don't think we actually fertilized at all!
  
  1. Sapphire
    
    June 3, 2021 at 12:55 pm
    
    Ah! So maybe you're location and such was good. :D Hopefully they just needed more vitamins to really take off for you. I like fertilizing anything I'm messing with since dirt and store-bought soils can lose their vitamins so easily. If you buy a bag of soil that got rained on a few times, there's a chance some of the water got into the bag and leached some of the nutrients out. I started fertilizing all the time after I spent good money on soil (that was sitting outside in bags) and had my plants all fail in it. If you decide to try again, I hope that it works out much better for you. :D
  2. Katie
    
    June 25, 2021 at 9:31 am
    
    Sapphire - thanks for the suggestion! I will try that next time for sure!
Mel

October 5, 2023 at 7:31 am

We use wood ash and compost with potatoes a few weeks before planting. We didn’t do towers but a row. Worked okay lots of potato but not lg size. I usually use dirt and a single layer and pile on more as they grow. This works great. We tried putting straw on but as plants grew it was difficult to add straw. Like the concept. Not giving up on experimenting

1. Katie
  
  November 15, 2023 at 10:00 am
  
  Mel - we are going to try to do them in our raised beds this spring. Thanks for your input!