No Weed - No Dig Potatoes

Fingerling Potatoes - Russian Banana
Image via Wikipedia

Potato towers offer the gardener a great way to grow and harvest good sized potatoes without the back-breaking hassle of digging or weeding, or the addition of chemicals.

I am all for anything in my garden that I don't have to weed. Cover it over, punch holes in the cover and put the vegie plants in. That little bit of extra
time laying down that biodegradable or re-usable cover saves multitudes of time and labor, later down the line.

Potatoes and Pain

When I first came across growing potatoes in tubs and buckets, I seriously considered experimenting with that option. However, it never went past the consideration stage and I eventually quit growing potatoes all together.  My back just couldn't take it any longer and clay soil always resulted in tiny pototoes. Just not worth it. Plus, in central Wisconsin, you can find all the potato growers you want.

My father loved to grow potatoes. Other than those, and trees, he wasn't much of a farmer. His love of hunting, fishing, and logging, just did not leave room for the patience of a gardener. Not much thrill in the hunt for a prize tomato, I guess.  The fingerling, now that was a different story.  He could grow them until the cows came home.
Our basement was usually stocked with them over the winter. He'd cull out the best seed potatoes for the spring, and Mom was not allowed to fry them up.  Dad loved them for breakfast, lunch, and supper. Fried in butter, with bacon, made into german potato salad (mmmmm), boiled and even mashed. The yellow meat of the fingerling had no other rival in the world of potatoes.

When we moved to Dragn Rock Farm I had similar intentions. I had found some at the grocery store, cooked them up in several ways and presented them to my partner.  He was hooked and wanted more. So I embarked on growing them here on the farm. After two years and lots of aspirin and hot baths, I quit that nonsense. There are things that you do become too old to do. Digging potatoes is definitely one of them.

Then Came the Emergence of the Potato Tower!

When I considered the bucket or tub method for growing potatoes, my biggest concern was that the container would get quite heavy and unmanageable. The second concern was that I'd need a steady supply of soil to keep adding to the container. The third concern, that sealed my decision not to go that route, was the lack of sunshine the potato plants would be getting when they were deep in the tub.  The potato tower took care of all that.

Have you ever heard of lasagna gardening? You put down cardboard, then newspaper, then compost, then mulch....in layers like a pan of lasagna.  You plant your garden plants in there and it all breaks down nicely and weeding is minimized. Out here in weedland, those beds would soon be encroached by hoards of creeping charlie and quack grass, not mention the mint that went wild in my garden last year. I liked the idea of the lasagna gardens - a way to easily build raised beds - but I also did not like the messy look of them. Picky, aren't I, especially if you've ever seen my garden in the late fall...just say 'jungle'.

Building the Potato Towers

I became intrigued with some innovative ways that people were taking the work out of growing and harvesting potatoes and decided to come up with my own tower project. So, here is the result:

• First I built my potato cages - three to start. I had some old solid black painted wire squares that I purchased years ago from a company going out of business. The squares are about 24" each side. I used four of them and made them into a tower by clipping them together with plastic ties (you could use something more biodegradable), forming a two foot high box with no bottom.

• I cleared away a portion of my garden of all weed,s by laying down some black rubber slabs that I salvaged from a trucking company. These were used in the beds of the trucks to stop rolls of paper from sliding inside the trailer. When the rolls were delivered, the company just tossed out the rubber.  I use them all over my garden to kill off large areas of weeds. Note though, that you do need to move them around and let the sun get to the soil underneath because slugs love to live under them. No need to create a perfect habitat for those slime lovers.

• After removing the black rubber, I raked the area level, then placed a layer of heavy cardboard (salvaged from boxes saved and flattened all year), down on the area where the towers would be placed.

• I followed the layer of cardboard with a layer of black landscape fabric. On top of the fabric I built each tower.  Here are pictures that show how this was done:

As you can see, the cardboard is the first layer, then the black landscape

fabric and the wire cage is set on top of that. The base layers of board and fabric

are up tight to the Stella D'oro Lillies, and the edges are weighted 

down with large, heavy rocks - very available at the Dragn Rock Farm.

I placed at least six inches of clean, loose straw (not hay) in the
base of the cage.  Hay has a lot of weed and grass seeds in it, plus you do not
want to establish alfalfa in your garden. All are very hard to
get rid of and it defeats the purpose of  - No Weeding.

On top of the layer of straw, I added at least six inches of
well rotted compost (from my compost pile).

Then I went into the house, opened my bag of fingerling
seedling potatoes that I had purchased from my local quality
garden store, and cut them into pieces, each containing at least
three 'eyes'.  Potato eyes are where the plants begin to grow
out of the potato. I waited several days for the
cut pieces to dry and seal over.

I set the cut potatoes into the soil about six to eight inches apart,
approximately ten potatoes per cage, then covered the potatoes
and compost with another layer of straw - at least six inches deep.
Normally you would water this all down, but we are expecting rain
for the next day or so, making that a waste of water.

The No Weed - No Dig Potato Towers
With No Chemical Additives Needed

As the potatoes grow up and through the straw, I will add more straw and maybe more compost. The plant will not have competition from weeds and will have plenty of room to grow nice big Russian Banana Potatoes (what I call fingerlings). When harvest time rolls around, then I just open the cage on one side and out they come...

No Weed - No Dig

No Chemical Additives

and 

NO BACKACHES

Now that's what I call

Feel Good Gardening

Peace

Marlene Hobart

Dragn Rock Farm

Related articles

• Straw mulch makes perfect spuds (gardeningafterfive.wordpress.com)
• Recipe: German Potato Salad (frugalupstate.com)
• Growing potatoes is in the bag (seattletimes.nwsource.com)