As promised early in the season.

The bushel basket method is, basically, get an old bushel basket or laundry
basket (not as picturesque of course) or anything of similar size and
porosity, and put some potting soil in the bottom, then one hill's worth of
seed potatoes (I used 4 halves per basket), and cover with more potting
soil. As the season progresses, add more potting soil before any danger of
taters working their way to the top.

Plain old white skinned certified seed potatoes, which normally have a few
big ones and a lot of small ones fine for cooking or mashing.

Somewhat rainy year this year. It helped, probably, to have the potatoes up
out of the ground.

Results we

Harvest was of course easy. Turn the basket upside down, pick them up. No
cut potatoes, none left undiscovered.

Size was good, larger than usual. Potatoes are uniformly nice looking,
several bakers per hill.

Yield was probably about the same *number* of potatoes per hill as usual,
just that more of them were larger. 3-6 pounds per basket, I'd say.

Expenses increased due to the potting soil addition, but I used only
acceptable and not great potting soil. And I'm left with a basket half
full of handy spent potting soil to turn in.

Altogether, a good experience. And our kids thought of it as a nice science
experiment too. Yield and quality were improved, along with cost. Not sure
I could have done it to replace the total potato consumption of our family,
but perhaps it would be possible given longer, multi-hill enclosures of some
sort.

I have used the same idea with sweet potato slips. I only produced 2 to 3
per container, but it was better than nothing if you dont have the room to
plant more.

Dwayne

"TimB" wrote in message
news
As promised early in the season.

The bushel basket method is, basically, get an old bushel basket or
laundry
basket (not as picturesque of course) or anything of similar size and
porosity, and put some potting soil in the bottom, then one hill's worth
of
seed potatoes (I used 4 halves per basket), and cover with more potting
soil. As the season progresses, add more potting soil before any danger
of
taters working their way to the top.

Plain old white skinned certified seed potatoes, which normally have a few
big ones and a lot of small ones fine for cooking or mashing.

Somewhat rainy year this year. It helped, probably, to have the potatoes
up
out of the ground.

Results we

Harvest was of course easy. Turn the basket upside down, pick them up.
No
cut potatoes, none left undiscovered.

Size was good, larger than usual. Potatoes are uniformly nice looking,
several bakers per hill.

Yield was probably about the same *number* of potatoes per hill as usual,
just that more of them were larger. 3-6 pounds per basket, I'd say.

Expenses increased due to the potting soil addition, but I used only
acceptable and not great potting soil. And I'm left with a basket half
full of handy spent potting soil to turn in.

Altogether, a good experience. And our kids thought of it as a nice
science
experiment too. Yield and quality were improved, along with cost. Not
sure
I could have done it to replace the total potato consumption of our
family,
but perhaps it would be possible given longer, multi-hill enclosures of
some
sort.

On Thu, 02 Oct 2003 00:53:40 GMT, "TimB" wrote:



Altogether, a good experience. And our kids thought of it as a nice science
experiment too. Yield and quality were improved, along with cost. Not sure
I could have done it to replace the total potato consumption of our family,
but perhaps it would be possible given longer, multi-hill enclosures of some
sort.

Thanks for the report!

I know a lot of people do a similar thing with tires, which
would have the advantage of more surface area than laundry
baskets. But you never know, I might have old laundry
baskets some day....

Pat

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"TimB" wrote in message .. .
As promised early in the season.

The bushel basket method is, basically, get an old bushel basket or laundry
basket (not as picturesque of course) or anything of similar size and
porosity, and put some potting soil in the bottom, then one hill's worth of
seed potatoes (I used 4 halves per basket), and cover with more potting
soil. As the season progresses, add more potting soil before any danger of
taters working their way to the top.

I used a similar method in my garden this year, with decent success.
I had a new garden plot divided into 3' wide beds. I put 30" wire
fence around it, leaving a plot about 3' X 4'. I planted potatoes on
the top of the plot, and covered them with soil. As they grew, I
covered them with alternating layers of leafy compost and cheap
potting soil. By the middle of July, I had covered the plants up to
the top of the wire and the vines were falling to the ground. Harvest
was decent, though not distributed throughout the bin; most of them
were on the bottom. I had enough success to try it again next year.

I think the toughest thing was trying to keep them watered. Even the
heaviest rain could not get through all of that compost and dirt on
top of the vines, and get down to the roots. In the end, I had to dig
some trenches all around the outside of the bed and put water in
there, hoping it would soak underneath the bed. It must have worked,
because as soon as I did that, the vines finally perked up.

IC Gardener
Iowa City, Iowa
Zone 5A