Potato Tower Project!

The past couple weeks have been busy.  Last week I finished up at my 'day' job for the summer, so preparing the house for sale has ramped up into full gear.  Today was day eight of painting.  Eight. Days.  I love painting, but I have to admit that I'll be happy to see the end of painting, at least at this house and for a little while.  I'm sure when we get moved to our country farm home I'll start again, making it our own.  I'm hoping to have a sign on the front lawn within two weeks. Yippee!

Aside from painting, I've also been working on getting the outside ready.  I figure if the outside got planted, then it would have time to grow and fill out some while I'm working inside.  Luckily, (or not so luckily?) the weather here has been less than summery, so I don't feel like I've missed out being inside so much.

As part of my outside work, I decided I would try my hand at a project I've seen here and there on social media these past couple of years- a potato tower.  With downsizing our raised bed garden to appeal to potential new owners, there wasn't a lot of room left for planting potatoes.  Those buggers take up a lot of room!

This, right here, is Exhibit A.

>>Insert perfect opportunity to try potato tower here<<

Now, I didn't want it to cost of a lot, because I've been spending a lot on paint and things to get the house ready, so I decided to use materials we already had on hand, and see how it goes.  We had a few pallets I had salvaged a few years ago behind the shed, so they were perfect candidates for the main frame.  Woohoo!  FREE!   I also wanted something that I could 'hopefully' bring with us, so using four full pallets was out of the question, because that would be one HUGE potato tower.  Yay for potatoes, not yay for the poor people who have to at least TRY to move it when the time comes.  Solution?  Cut those suckers in half!

Once cut right down the middle, we just screwed them together, to make a box.  See exhibit A.  Now, we couldn't leave the bottom open, because moving it would mean losing all the potatoes out the bottom, so we screwed a piece of wood that we had lying around to the bottom.  Viola!

For filler I was torn between a lot of dirt, a combination of dirt lined with straw or straw lined with dirt.  Since I had more straw than dirt, I opted from option 3.  I basically just layered it:  Base of straw, covered with dirt and compost, distributed seed potatoes, and added more straw. Repeat.  The only additional thing that I did was to add a random piece of hosing down the middle.  I figured this would help get water down to those bottom layers, to keep everything well-watered.  Do you remember my sweet potato slip post from a couple of months ago?  Those pretty little ladies were also included in the potato tower, even though they aren't even technically related to the Russets and Yukons that I planted in there as well.

WHAT is this, you say?  Not related?  That's right!  Not even cousins.  Sweet potatoes are related to morning glories, in the Ipomoea genus (say whaaaat?!?!) and potatoes belong to the nightshade family.  Mind blown.  You're welcome, and that concludes today's biology lesson.

You should most definitely try your hand at a potato tower.  I mean, why not?  I'll periodically update you on how mine is coming along and I'd love to hear your updates as well.  Let me know what works for you.