Skip to main content

The Great Potato Experiment

As you all know I worked for a year and a half at the Community Garden Project, Grow Food, Grow Hope. And when you work at a community garden people are always asking for gardening advice or trying to give their own; and in my adventures I was always hearing about different ways to grow potatoes.
Even recently I have heard tell of interesting potato growing schemes such as a "Potato Bed".  

Well the idea that you could grow potatoes in very small spaces was very intriguing to me because what better way to supplement your diet with things you grow yourself than potatoes?!  

So way back at the beginning of the gardening season I found some seed potatoes and some potatoes that were growing eyes and I decided to conduct the Great Potato Growing Experiment.  

I planted seed potatoes in containers-one that was meant to simulate growing in actual earth-(although it wasn't very deep) and the other in a 4 quart pot.  I also planted some extra potatoes that were in my pantry growing eyes in both the earth-like container and a 2 1/2 quart pot.  

Recently the 2 1/2 quart pot died and as you wait to harvest potatoes until after the plant has died off I dumped it in search of a bounty.  As you can see that's not exactly what I found.  

Harvest

Please note: no cucumbers were grown during the potato growing experiment this was from an adjacent plant , lol


My other containers, being much larger and much more like the environment that potatoes are accustomed to growing in are doing much better.  


The 4 quart container is just now blooming.  



And the larger, shallow container is just now starting to die back a little.
As they have been growing the longest.  


I'll keep you posted on the amount of potatoes that I harvest from each of these.  In the meantime does anyone have an interesting potato growing solutions that they have used?


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Vermicomposting

Vermicomposting is exactly what is sounds like: composting with vermis, which is the Latin for worms.   I first became acquainted with vermicomposting when I started at Grow Food, Grow Hope in November 2009.  One of my coworkers was attempting to vermicompost in a container he kept in his desk and usually the 1st thing he said to you after "hello" was "want to see my worms?"  However, the worms jumped ship, were all over the office, and then were banned permanently.   Since that day I had a small adventure into composting with worms.  In my ignorance in the nature of compost I assumed that worms were always necessary for compost and therefore dug up worms from the backyard to add to my porch compost bin (an 18-gallon Rubbermaid tub I drilled holes in and added my food scraps to).  These worms of course were never seen again as they were cooked in my compost bin.   And then the research began.    Now tha...

Shoes

Shoes Shania Twain Tell me about it... Ooh! Men. Have you ever tried to figure them out? Huh, me too, but I ain't got no clue How 'bout you? Men are like shoes Made to confuse Yeah, there's so many of 'em I don't know which ones to choose (yeah, yeah, yeah) Ah, sing it to me If you agree There's the kind made for runnin' The sneakers and the low down heels The kind that will keep you on your toes And every girl knows how that feels (yeah, yeah, yeah) Ouch, ah, sing it with me Chorus: You've got your kickers and your ropers Your everyday loafers, some that you can never find You've got your slippers and your zippers Your grabbers and your grippers Man, don't ya hate that kind? Some you wear in, some you wear out Some you wanna leave behind Sometimes you hate 'em And sometimes you love 'em I guess it all depends on which way you rub 'em But a girl can never have too many of 'em It's amazing what a little polish will do... Men ar...

FINALLY

After more time than I ever intended on dedicated to creating the list, blog, and ticker that has accompanied this 101 in 1001 I am finally finished. As you have seen, the bolded items are the categories, and the items that are NOT pink (in this case I believe we'll let them all be purple, because its a nice match, are the items that are finished. Today's one and only item (and the motivation for FINALLY getting this up) is Emma, a great book. I watched the movie with Megan before leaving for France so I knew what was going to happen. Now I'm sitting here dreaming of my own Mr. Knightley, but where I will find him I have no idea. Let me know if you find any men as perfect, graceful, handsome, and amazing as Mr. Knightley for me.