Squarefoot garden and pototo barrel pictures

[Turq1]

I'm hoping this all comes out ok.....

So for the first time, we tried gardening. I read up on the squarefoot gardering idea and had a few ideas of my own.


This is how I made the corners - note the metal cloth - God knows how much I hate gophers.


Ready to plant:


Hoping for some sunshine here in Oregon!


This is my first pototo barrel effort (I had no idea how fast a pototo grows!!)

[sarahluker]

How long did it take to grow the potatoes?

[Turq1]

I planted them just before Mother's Day and pulled them out last week. Next time I will do two barrels and dump one late August. Please keep in mind my yard is pretty shady and your times will vary.

[sarahluker]

That looks so cool.  I can't wait to get started next spring with a bigger garden.  Keep putting up the pictures.  We all love seeing what others have accomplished.

[Burnt Hollow]

I love the potato barrel. I have failed at potatos the last 2 years, I think I plant too late. I am going to give this a try, and plant them much earlier.

[KYdoomer]

Awesome!

J

[cdunlop]

Very cool!

[drthumbs]

missed this before now.... Looks great and give me some good ideas.  Thanks

[phargolf]

I too missed the potato barrel before. That is a really good idea! How many pounds per barrel to you think you got?

[evilphish]

question.  did you fill the barrel first then plant your spuds, or did you plant them then added compost and dirt as they grew?

[Rookinde]

Ok, time for a couple of crazy questions... Where do you get the seeds for taters? What is growing the tall PVC pipe's in the pic.

Rook

[jaegersapper]

I am going to try my hand at growing potatoes in a stack of tires.  Saw several spots with directions on the net.

http://www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/sanders98.html

Basic idea is to plant potatoes in a tire and when the plant is tall enough add additional tires (not covering leaves)
then to harvest just remove the tires. 

I don't have much room for a garden.

[KYdoomer]

Ok, time for a couple of crazy questions... Where do you get the seeds for taters? What is growing the tall PVC pipe's in the pic.

Rook

You can order them many places.  Seedsavers.org has a lot of varieties.  You can also grab some at some hardware stores (Tractor Supply, etc.).

The things in the PVC appear to be strawberries.  That's an inventive way of planting them.

J

[Hraz]

I just ordered a couple of Potato Grow Bags from Gardeners Supply.
http://www.gardeners.com/Potato-Bin/VegetablePlanters_Cat,36-629,default,cp.html

[Freshman Preppy]

Anyone know if you can grow any other type of plants in the same spot as a potato plant?  Seems like a lot of dirt for a few potatoes.

[KYdoomer]

Anyone know if you can grow any other type of plants in the same spot as a potato plant?  Seems like a lot of dirt for a few potatoes.

My companion planting chart says beans make a good companion. 

There is some debate but tomatoes seems to be one of the worst companions.

You may try fennel, dill or any other "umbrella" plant which will bring in pollinators and helpful insects.

Its going to be hard to plant anything else in that barrel though because you keep adding the dirt to keep the potato growing upward.  Dill has a long stem.  Its a long shot (no pun intended) but its worth a try.

J

[96Charlie]

I noticed that there's no top cover for the box.  Do you have any issues with squirrels or whatever climbing into the vegs?

[Turq1]

Sorry, I've been away for awhile.

Regarding some questions:
Growing something else with the potatoes? Probably not, between adding more dirt to the barrel and the massive amount of greenery no where for anything else to grow.

Source of seed potatoes - I bought these at Wally World, I used about 3lbs of the 5lb pack for the barrel and put the rest into a planter that did very poorly compared to the barrel. This year I will go to the local yuppie market and buy some potatoes to use as seed.

Waste dirt? thankfully potatoes do not need really good soil. I will reuse the soil on another project. Apparently you can reuse the soil for anything but tomatoes. I've read tomatoes and potatoes share some of the same diseases.

Cover the boxes? I put a 4ft tall, very open box weave fence around it to keep the STUPID dog out of it. But squirrels were never a problem (and we have several of them).

The whole potato experiment cost me more than buying them at Costco; at least for the first year. But it will be cheap from here on out.

Good luck

[“Mark”]

Waste dirt? thankfully potatoes do not need really good soil. I will reuse the soil on another project. Apparently you can reuse the soil for anything but tomatoes. I've read tomatoes and potatoes share some of the same diseases.

As with eggplant. They're all members of the Solanum genus. I would also not reuse the soil for peppers or anything else in the Solanaceae (Nightshade) family.

[Ann]

I simply LOVE what you did with the strawberry plants!  That is AWESOME!!

We've got our beds set, and we're setting our indoor seed starts this weekend.  Got the seed, needed the $ for the lamp because we only have one window with good light!

Keep the pics coming!  Love it!

[Turq1]

Ahhh... the PVC pipes.  Yepper, those are strawberries. They turned out pretty well; the problem is my yard is really shaded by douglas fir trees so any sunny area gets well used.  I got those from a well drilling outfit, they are (or were) well casings that had a cracked ends. I dug a deep hole, placed the casing about 2-3ft deep and then dropped alot of rock and broken concrete inside. Over top of that, I put some weed barrier before I put the dirt in. I then used a hole saw to drill the openings for the strawberries. The idea was to provide good drainage and reduce the dirt from settling too much. I found that adding water to the top of the pipe was good enough to water everything in the pipe.


A couple of warnings:
1. My inital thought was to provide some sort of lip or outcropping in the PVC to provide a ledge for the strawberry plants. Yes, PVC can be heated and reshaped and yes, the fumes can make you sick. 
2. Short of hard packing dirt in the pipe, you will get some settling so be prepared to add dirt to the top of the pipe thru the summer.
3. I did not have any problems with ants but, I was prepared to laydown a "girdle" of double sided tape about a foot off the ground to stop them.
4. The crossbeams were not to add strenght, the idea there was to provide a top support for plant twine trellises. The fence ended up providing the support for the plants.

[KYdoomer]

Ahhh... the PVC pipes.  Yepper, those are strawberries. They turned out pretty well; the problem is my yard is really shaded by douglas fir trees so any sunny area gets well used.  I got those from a well drilling outfit, they are (or were) well casings that had a cracked ends. I dug a deep hole, placed the casing about 2-3ft deep and then dropped alot of rock and broken concrete inside. Over top of that, I put some weed barrier before I put the dirt in. I then used a hole saw to drill the openings for the strawberries. The idea was to provide good drainage and reduce the dirt from settling too much. I found that adding water to the top of the pipe was good enough to water everything in the pipe.


A couple of warnings:
1. My inital thought was to provide some sort of lip or outcropping in the PVC to provide a ledge for the strawberry plants. Yes, PVC can be heated and reshaped and yes, the fumes can make you sick. 
2. Short of hard packing dirt in the pipe, you will get some settling so be prepared to add dirt to the top of the pipe thru the summer.
3. I did not have any problems with ants but, I was prepared to laydown a "girdle" of double sided tape about a foot off the ground to stop them.
4. The crossbeams were not to add strenght, the idea there was to provide a top support for plant twine trellises. The fence ended up providing the support for the plants.

It is pretty brilliant.  I thought about hijacking your idea and building lengths about 3 feet long.  Put a cap on the end, drill holes in it to drain, put in the strawberry holes and screw or bolt them to my deck.  They would be unobtrusive, the kid could not get into them and they would be really easy to pick. 

J

[jr doyle]

i too am in the pdx area (east co.) and feel your pain of finding sunny spots in the garden. we did the potatoes this year also but i made some "barrels" out of some old chicken wire i had laying around. didnt do too well with them this year but we learned some things and my 4 year old was beaming for a couple days when i came home and he told me we were eating OUR potatoes for dinner  i have a couple old barrels from an abandoned rain barrel project so i might go with your idea instead. i took the dirt/straw mixture from the potato towers and mixed it in the compost with the last of the lawn clippings and first fall of leaves so i hope this will help to "cook" any nasties out if theyre there.

also we have an old hollow stump out front that i figurtd would be a great strawberry planter but you thought you fought settling...  definitely going pvc next year! thanks for sharing the pics and updating, really cool stuff!

[ncjeeper]

The whole potato experiment cost me more than buying them at Costco; at least for the first year. But it will be cheap from here on out.

Thats my problem too. I just dont have much luck growing taters.