POTATO TOWER HARVEST And It's NOT What You Think! Knocking over our Potato Towers
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- Опубліковано 6 вер 2020
- All good things must come to an end! It was time to knock over and harvest our potato towers for the 2020 growing season. This potato tower harvest was completely unexpected and makes us wonder about other methods of growing potatoes in small spaces and containers.
Potato BUCKET Harvest: • POTATO BUCKETS HARVEST...
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Being a homesteader is a lot like being a politician, always got to put a positive spin on everything 😄
Hahaha!!! That is quite right Josh! LOL
What about the previous year, was there a frost did you water enough and was it a better yield?
I like that you were honest and posted the fail!
Maybe consider planting fewer potatoes in the towers to give them greater amount of soil to grow in. Using 3 potatoes per 25 litre bucket of soil (or even more soil) for the towers, thus comparing results using equal amounts of soil. Also, the potato shoots could maybe face towards the near edge of the tower.
Now I want to see a test of the tower where you use less potatoes per layer and do less layers.. check to see if giving them potatoe more space in the tower will turn out bigger potatoes. less but thicker layers. Maybe 2-3 layers max with 1-2 potato chunks per layer
Maybe added a bigger tower cage on the outside of main one as the plants grow out of the main cage, fill with straw . It would be like hilling up the potatoes and you would get less green potatoes since the potatoes are now deeper in also maybe cooler.
We tried this method last year too. I think I got 2 handfuls of tiny potatoes. Hoping for better luck this year.
New to your channel and been binge watching between chores so thanks for the hard work and having plenty of content. Apartment prepper so was keen on the towers for the rocky area i hunt at. Will probably try it still but in a smaller scale with some fingerlings....also green when it comes to gardening but giving it my all. Loved the 🪣🥔 video and has me optimistic on my set up 👍
daaaamn when you go for poutine and end up pouting.. better luck next year
😂
Pretty standard tower reveal. Most of the varieties we have available are determinate types.....and thus don't do well in that scenario. Commercial farmers don't want vining spuds with runners as they are harder to harvest for their big machines. If you can get your hands on some indeterminate potatoes it will work far better. Ama Rosa and sarpo mira would be ideal for the tower. Great compost for other beds tho:))
I don't really like "commerical" potatoes. everything these days is huge in size but 0 flavors. Trust me stay organic. One organic onion has enough flavor intensity for your mouth with potatoes and fried eggs
@@athrunzala5337 While I agree with your stance on commercial potatoes, the organic myth is crap, I grow many plants both in the raised beds and hydroponically, and while they taste different, to say non-organic is less tasty is wrong. The hydroponic is nothing but artificial fertilzers.
@@matthewfarrell317 Not always. . in hydroponics you get them fast and depending on the seed variety (GMO) you can get hungry plants that grow fast but no taste. My mother bought a bouquet of green onions 30 cm long but tastes like cucumbers and its hard to digest, the skin is thick. While my organic ones are 15 cm long, brittle when eaten and one is hot enough to make you drink a glass of water after you eat it
Great info! Thank you!
In my experience, lots of small potatoes is the plants response to the shock of the frost.
Yes, that’s our impression with this crop as well. Thanks for watching Julian!
Like she says, there is an upside to everything. Gotta love all that compost. Consider it part of the harvest. I totally hear you on the frost/freeze danger aspect. I live in one of the most garden friendly areas of California, and we can get late frosts when we are supposed to be past the danger times.
Anyways, thanks for sharing your experiences on youtube!
I grew mine in buckets last year and I got back about 3/4ths more than I planted
Its good to be positive, always learning 👍
Always!
Great video, very informative, thanks for sharing 👍
Those small spuds go great in stews.
Yes they do!
What variety did you use? The potato towers work best with indeterminate potatoes ....they are labeled as late potatoes. If you use early potatoes they don’t continue growing out like the indeterminate ones? So early potatoes or determinate potatoes are not for this project. Use indeterminate or late potatoes for your towers. hope that helps
I can’t remember which varieties we planted that year. It’s probably in a previous video though. Some years the towers are great, some years they aren’t. Which is why we plant different methods to ensure some form of potato harvest. Thanks for watching!
Maybe a layer of straw on the outside, when you start them, would help keep a late frost at bay ? That and maybe some large plastic bags over the whole thing ?
That's a cool way to grow potatoes 🥔 🥔 Maybe it was the frost that stunted the growth. No matter what I am going to give your tower method a try. Thanks for showing us your tower method. I have plenty of space to do this as an experiment. See ya next season Wilderstead. Love your channel.
Great Experiment! tipping over towers looks easier then digging potatoes though!
Totally!
The soil looked really good. Bad luck about the late frost.
i think it can work ..move them closer to out side.. i also think the frost hurt you also if i under stand right
Thank you.
Since ure knocking the first tower my eyes go to the amazing compost 😆
Did you plant determinate or indeterminate varieties? Yes, 2020 seems be an all around challenging year. Thanks for sharing!
When I was a little boy 50 or more years ago we did potato towers but you only plant one layer of potato's then cover the green growth as it came up through the ground up to the top then let them go till the leaves die our towers produced so much we had to sell most or they would go bad.
That method can work too if you use indeterminate varieties.
Frost there and here in Washington we are literally on fire. Lol. All around my neighborhood has been evacuated
The frost was back in June shortly after we planted. Although it’ll be back here soon enough! Stay safe out there!
You only need soil at the bottom. Plant seed potatoes on top of the soil add 6 to 8 inches of straw amount of straw lightly compacted. Then as the leaves grow a couple inches through, add more straw (6 to 8 in). Repeat until full. Add a cap of fertilizer/ compost/ top soil. You don't need much. You planted to many. Just the bottom. Let the vine grow up.
Different method. Thanks though.
@@Wilderstead
I like your method, but I might try one tower of the other method also.
I like the idea.... 💯
Tower's dried out. Not sure what reason you gave for not using watering pipe. Also use that same pipe to throw unfinished compost and worms in when you find them. Thanks for posting.
thanks for experience bro
To me, a failure is when you lose everything. Could have been worse.
You are making me want harvest mine to peak...its wet and rainy today though....that sucks the towers didn't do better :(
Hopefully you do better than us!
lots of green potatoes.
Hola soy nuevo. Saludos desde argentina
I personally think that growing potatos 2 to 3 feet deep is a youtube myth that has been tirelessly repeated. I commend you for showing the results, most don't. I wonder why.
No offense intended, but you obviously didn't watch the build video. These are layered and grow out the side, they aren't trying to grow them through 3 feet of soil.
@@klincecum no offense taken. I watched it 8 months ago. I don't remember what I remember from it. Lol
In the UK we wouldn’t put spuds out until late April. Mainly in tall grow bags or in row. If in rows keep a tarp or old carpet on the ground, it keeps weeds down and keeps the earth from getting to hard with frost/snow.
Once spuds are in you keep them covered with a tarp, keep checking for shoots then cover with more earth, repeat whether in bags or rows when you have some nice hillocks and the bag has reached the top with compost/soil. By this stage the risk of frost has passed so you no longer need the carpet/tarp. And you can leave them be probably feed a couple of times. The worst this is blight. If you have any grey mildewy patches on the leaves remove immediately so it reduces the risk of spreading. Also reduce watering especially if humid.
Have a look at the UA-cam channel simplify gardening……
Like the concept I feel you did not have enough space between your potatoes. 3 per layer on alternating pattern would have provided more space and yealded a better crop using less potatoes.
Man, I watched you guys plant them them harvest and still don't know if tower vs row is better. I guess I did get potted vs frost. Maybe next time ;)
We do the towers every year. This year we'll be eliminating the row/hill method and focusing on buckets and towers. There will be more videos too.
Darn I was rooting for your second one there. I'm excited to see the difference between my ruth stout and in ground patatoes. I think I might leave some in the ground to reseed for next year. Maybe save on that task next spring.
That sounds like a good idea!
Bummer... :( well, lots of roasting with the little ones!
Us too!! Not sure what's up. But I'm not giving up on the towers yet 😉
We’ll do em again next year. This is the first time they disappointed us 😞
@@Wilderstead All of my homesteading friends in Ontario had poor potato harvests... So we're not alone. Can you guys grow sweet potatoes? Or are you too far north?
I have heard the same from quite a few folks about this years potato harvest in Ontario. Not sure what might be behind that considering it's from the north to the south. I blame 2020! HAH!
Sweet potatoes we could probably grow. Neither of us a huge fans of them though, so we've never dedicated garden space to them.
@@Wilderstead 2020 has been a strange one! We had more garden pests this year than we have ever had. I was just waiting for the swarm of locusts 😂 We love sweet potatoes and prefer them to regular. But if you guys don't eat them no sense in taking up real estate
@@SpiraeaHerbs We had a full on war with cucumber beetles this year! Luckily we still managed to harvest and can what we'll need for a year!
Here is something that you might try using. I have heard of people using this method with success but it wasn't as far north as you are - It might be worth a try. Instead of wire to hold the dirt and straw in place use old tires. Start with a 2 or 3 tires stacked and laying down filled with your dirt, straw and compost. Plant the potato eyes and wait for them to grow. When the get to the height needed add a tire and more dirt. Continue to do this until you have the height of potato garden wanted - may 6 - 8 tires of so your choice. Then when ready to harvest just reverse the process. Why this may work some better is that the potato plant produces the potatoes along stock of the plant that is under the soil so you can get more production in a smaller space and fewer plants. Soil should be rich with composted manure. It may be worth a try. Hope it works!! Love your videos! rlg
We have tried the ‘box’ or ‘tire’ type methods in the past. They don’t work.
This year was our first year that the towers themselves produced poorly. In a ‘normal’ year we see 50 - 100lbs per tower. Same with our in ground/hilling method. The yield was very poor this year. And we’ve summed that up to the late frost that we had in June.
Our bucket potatoes did outstanding, so we’ll be planting more of those next spring, as well as the towers. I think we might abandon the in ground growing for potatoes though.
Cheers Roy!
This tire method only works with late blooming potatoes. All the rest grow horizontally
I wouldn't call that a fail, between drought an frost, I'd say it was a successful proof of concept. I won't be harvesting mine till frost...
BLESSINGS 💞
I've seen a lot of videos showing how to grow spuds in towers and promising fantastic yields, but I've never seen one give more than a meagre return.
You need indeterminate varieties for this method, which produce tubers all along the stem. My "Up to Dates" last summer gave excellent in-ground yields of many large tubers, plus clusters of about 50 smaller ones which were trying to grow but I interrupted them.
But other determinate varieties gave almost invariably 8 spuds each.
The best plan for getting large tubers is to only plant pieces with a single eye. Rub all the others off.
And allow them plenty of room. Planting 8 lbs of seed in that small area means that the many plants are constantly fighting each other for nutrients, water and especially sunlight.
Do you have a playlist for growing potatoes? I could not find one.
I Will try in Brasil. No winter.
We didn't have a great potato harvest either. Maybe doubled what we planted in spring?
I’m blaming it all on 2020!
@@Wilderstead Yup - if ic can go wrong, seems like it will this year.
Bright side: Perhaps this will be the low point in all our lives! Hopefully It's all gravy after this?
Lets hope so Dave!
Wow where does it frost in June?
I see you got some green on potatoes
That was my experance also
It must be because potato plants dont like growing sideways, they prefer going vertical, cause other than that what is the difference?
How do you protect youre potstoes if you have a frost coming
Tak uvidíme zda to půjde mě, tady to vipadá na nečekaně malou úrodu brambor, při pěstování v bramborové věži.
About the same results as us in our garden not good :( we will try buckets next year
We'll also be doing more buckets next year than we did this year.
I've experimented with several types of towers, boxes, bags, buckets, and after running duplicate comparison tests in my opinion conventional growing in the ground provides 3 to 5 times the yield. Only time I ever came close to an equal yield was when I skewed the data by using 75% compost and straw.
So, if your leaves go brown, but you're not harvesting yet, do you still water them? I live in the desert.
I noticed a lot of green potatoes in the first tower too, too much sun exposure on the sides?
That was because we didn’t add a layer of dirt on the top once it settled... the potatoes generally are far enough in on the sides to not be exposed.
I’m from searchmont cool videos I want to build a big green house next year using pallets and plastic tubing off the grid can I come see your place for the erigation system because you are in goulais bay right just past haveland bay
The pipe to many or to big holes. For that to work you need it to fill up all the way
Potatoes have been grown in the ground for hundreds of years for a reason. Hot weather is the enemy of the potato. Exposing potatoes above ground only increases that issue. I can grow potatoes conventionally and on average produce 25 lbs of potatoes per 1 lb of seed potatoe. Towers maybe 3 to 5 lbs. More work, expense, watering, I can't figure out why anyone attempts the towers. At least we have someone who is honest and posted their results.
They’re a tough crop for us to grow here, being on Canadian Shield/bedrock. Everything has to be grown in raised beds of some sort, or containers. We’ve had some impressive tower harvests in years past, so it’s something we’ll continue to do. Luckily, it’s not the only method we use to grow spuds, just one of them.
Tried a similar method in a warmer part of Arizona in 2010 .. Found that an in ground late winter planting worked better for overall yield.
But you have actual rain ... so you still did a fair bit better than mine did
Fifth video on how those towers don't produce
Why did you say it works be better to use a smaller diameter for the pvc tube? It drained too quickly? Did you use indeterminate potatoes? Thanks
I betcha the pile got too hot due to having too much straw in it
Wow your pots had about 4 lb per potato and your towers .1lb per potato sounds like pots are better.
What kind of potatoes
smaller diameter pipe right.. rocks seem to make sense; what was the issue..too much overflow out of the top.. or ??
smaller pipe would fill up too quickly..need to find that sweet spot .. or adjust the hole sizes on the sides as well
ooooo, cool math ideas..but you could just play first !
Yep not good my box tower did just ok 30lbs from 3lbs but all medium sized
Seems to be the case with a lot of folks this year. Hopefully next year makes up for it!
Its progress
Achievement
Try again u will get it
Looks like you need to grow in polytunnels there eh ...
how did they turn green under dirt?
my potato harvest sucked too, all small but no green
A few of them were poking out the top layer. Kinda neglected them the last few weeks and should have put a layer of soil on top of the ones that were exposed.
@@Wilderstead ok thanks, makes sense.
Are you going to give it another shot next year? Maybe with some plastic over them at the start of the year?
How was the blueberry picking?
Yeah, definitely going to do them again next year. This is the first time they disappointed us. Had we have been here when that frost hit in June, we would have definitely covered them up. It even snowed on us in the Nipigon area that weekend when we were fishing! Blueberries - about 25 litres or so we picked. Bears were full on getting ready for fall, too LOL
@@Wilderstead I hear that blueberry pie makes a great house warming gift for people moving into the area....hint, hint.
We will hunt you down and bring the pie!
I would be so pleased if I managed to get that many tators for myself. First time trying...I’m trying to grow my half Organic store bought sweet potato 🍠 from the slip 🌱 but seems to be taking a very long time for it to even sprout in a cup of water after a few weeks. Any suggestions please ?🙏 Thanks
I have the worst luck in growing potatoes. This year (2021), however, I shall prevail!
Hey I had I great potato harvest Last year, I did plant them in the ground but I put them in very deep and I put a good amount of leaves and manure under and on top of the potatoes and about 6 inches of dirt on top of it all I thought they were not going to do much because #1 it was my first garden #2 it snowed 2 times after I had them in the ground and #3 friends and family said I was crazy, so I plant 1 more row the way every one said to do so and I would say my way did amazing I put 10 kg in and got about 36 kg out and the friends and family row I got small potatoes I did get out what I put in but it was not near what I got from my crazy idea😜😂
but you can't eat the green ones. ..
Not what you think? Thought for a moment you found Saruman in one of them.
No, not Saruman. But Radagast lives in the barn here. Grumpy old bugger.
Talvez a torre fosse maior, seria mais produtivo
frost in june?
Yup, most years frost in June. This year it happened in the middle of the month.
I’ve watched several fail videos. You need indeterminate potatoes in a tower. Try again with the correct variety, don’t give up!
Not the way we plant it, the potatoes grow out the sides. Essentially it is just like in the ground, but rolled up into a cylinder. We are not letting the potatoes grow up and piling more dirt on top
Not so good. Thanks for your experience!
Why complain, you still got your taters back even after losing your plants to frost.
I would say that this was a success !
COVID potatoes
Be grateful for the bounty you received.
Many either have nothing or no ability to produce healthy food as you do.
Bad maintenance can also be a reason.
Its never a year of fail. We did learn NOT to grow in the twin towers. Hmm, the last twin towers I saw somewhere else didn't do so good either. The buckets did really well in your other video.
If you can grow up in the Canadian Shield, that's a win.
Well we're in a Grand Solar Minimum now, so the coming growing seasons are going to be different than any of us have been used to. We have to look at history, 200 years ago, to get an idea of what to expect. For those of us west of the Mississippi there are less records to go off of. Some journals from Lewis and Clark, oral traditions of Native Americans and what paleoclimatologists can piece together. But I think the truth about CO2 will finally come out. CV19 makes a nice distraction/cover story for food shortages though. Rather clever of them to not let a crisis go to waste.
100% agree with you. I have seen here in Australia, our springs taking forever to warm up, and now our autumn is staying warm for so long, we are only now finally starting to cool for winter. I have watermelons still growing here in April, it's nuts.
You should really consider getting help...
How disappointing! Being hit by frost was unanticipated. It added a new variable. If that alone affected the yield, then, could growing in a container (under identical conditions) have better protected the potatoes from frost? Would that hold a better promise?
Have you grown potatoes using all three methods...in ground, in tower and in containers... under identical conditions in a given season? If so, that might be close to a more reliable "experiment" and will be a fair comparison of the three methods.
Please share.
All three methods are shown in a single season in the playlist that this video is in. The buckets did best.
@@Wilderstead Thanks. Will check them out.
Your putting to much patatoes in the bench. Just one patato in the bench and make them smaller , that should do the trick. 1 patato. Kan grow with tublers 1 feet wide and 2 feed deep.
That sounds a lot like clutch…
Great band. Saw them play a couple times many years ago.
@@Wilderstead they are still pretty awesome! Great shows
@@denisetaylor8683 their show from red rock last summer is in regular rotation here currently 😉
@@Wilderstead nice!
I am sorry your yield wasn’t better,there is always next year! 2020 blah!
Haha, 2020 indeed! We have heard from quite a few folks that this years potato harvest was sub par. Not sure what might be the cause.
Wilderstead I know for sure one of my issues was planting way too late! Also they were at the garden I have at my moms and not the one at home so watering was probably an issue to in regular care. I am such a procrastinator and I didn’t have a place for everything so I have to keep extending my growing space. Definitely need to work on planning and execution in a more timely manner. LOL!
Yo creo q si ponían una papa x maseta, unieran tenido más papas
add clay
we definitely have some clay here that we could add.
@@Wilderstead your potato tower technique works only in a climate where it heavily rains. The gap in the fence is so wide it makes the sun and the wind dry it very quickly. If you insist on using this technique, make sure it is mosquito wire size and as I said earlier, add 25% of the tower size in clay. Mix the clay with the potting mix.
For you to break clay, just get a bottle of water and soak the clay then leave it for 10-15 minutes until it absorbs the water. Throw excess water then leave the clay for 2 hours. This way it will be dry enough to break it as easy as compost. Mix it with the rest of the potting mix.
You should get a good result.
Does that also work in zones 9&10?God bless 🙏
@@siry5164 a 2 to 1 ratio of sawdust and clay will work anywhere. adding grass clippings or manure will also be an added value.
By themselves, grass clippings and manure will release a great amount of heat burning the roots but when sawdust and clay are added, they will normalize and tone down this heat.
As for hay, since they are not small in size like sawdust, it is better to turn them into compost first. If you want quick gardening, saw dust is the shortest route, coarse or fine sawdust, it doesn't matter
So dust+clay is the fastest way with aluminum/steel mosquito mesh instead of wide gap chicken netting
I see a lot of green taters...
Yeah, we failed to pile more dirt on top when they started growing, and the dirt settled. You live and you learn.
I reckon the lady cooks as she's placing them in the container whereas the guy is throwing them in - don't bruise your spuds!
You'd reckon wrong. Dave does the vast majority of the cooking on the Wilderstead. Cheers!
@@Wilderstead Dave should get the missus to pull her weight then! This video put me off growing potatoes in towers, yet I may give it a go. I fear it requires a lot of watering though.
@@VanderlyndenJengold The missus to pull her weight? Every aspect of what we do here is shared work. Plain and simple. This isn’t a he does this, she does that homestead. If you explore this channel beyond potatoes, you’ll find that Amanda definitely ‘pulls her weight’ here.
The towers do require a little more watering than growing them in the ground. However, when you are growing your food on bedrock, with extremely limited topsoil, the effort is worth it. Some years they’re great, others the harvest isn’t great, much like any crop.
@@Wilderstead i was being facetious. good for you two.
@@VanderlyndenJengold it can be hard to sense that in comments sometimes 😆
bummer. better head to Meijers. 10lbs of taters for $3.99 lol
Yeah, we'll have to see what the row we planted looks like. No idea what Meijers is LOL
Wilderstead grocery store. You guys ever toss night crawlers into your gardens?
Wilderstead also black plastic works great for preventing the frost damage. I garden in northern Michigan. Good luck.
I do not call that a fail. But maybe if I lived out there where you are...
Yea, that's a fail.
Well, seems to me you broke even on the potato towers, except for labor. Disappointing but could have been worse. Better luck next time.
Geez guys, don't toss your potatoes around like that. You bruise them and it will start them rotting.
donk
Determinate or indeterminate
Insomma na merda!