Update on The Great Potato Experiment

I thought at first that my Great Potato Experiment, aka growing potatoes in a garbage can and training them to grow up instead of out, would be a flop. It took what seemed like a long time to see any growth peeking out above the soil. Finally, however, some cute little greens showed up.

Now that it’s hot and sunny during the day, they’ve grown incredibly fast.

The orange you see is cayenne pepper, also known as squirrel deterrent. They ate the only strawberry my plants had produced so far, even though it was a green and tiny strawberry, so I’ve been vigilant. I wish I could have gotten a good angle, but there isn’t one that doesn’t distort the perspective and shows you how tall these are. They’re almost to the top of the garbage can, and it’s time to put more soil in. Every 8 inches of growth or so, I put more soil in until just a few inches of stalk are left peeking out. In this way, I can convince the potato plants to convert stalk into root. Which leads to more potatoes in a smaller space.

Another way to do this is with used tires. See this post and this post and finally this post on Bonzai Aphrodite for a tutorial.

I opted for a garbage can because I wanted to put them on my deck and I didn’t have room – or much sun – in my flower bed. The garbage can also allows me to control the amount of water they get more easily. Root rot can affect your crop yield a lot, so there are times when I dump the pooled water out of the lid that’s below the garbage can, and at other times I cover the garbage can with the lid because they’ve gotten more than enough rain. Other advantages to the garbage can are that I can try this in the back of the basement if I decide to grow potatoes over the winter, and out of all my outdoor plants, I worry the least about these during heavy Midwestern storms. But using old tires is the greener solution because you’re reusing what would normally end up in a landfill, so if you have the room, my suggestion is to use those instead.

And here you thought I was performing cruel experiments on poor, innocent potatoes. I assure you, no potatoes have been harmed in this experiment. Yet. 😉