Potato tire tower photo by Bonzai Aphrodite
We've bemoaned the tragedy of eating non-organic potatoes (see: "The Seven Foods Safety Experts Won't Eat" and "Potato, Potahto") A pack of organic potato seeds will run you about $3.50 and will provide you with pounds upon pounds of this vegetable. But what if you're tight on space for growing your veggies? We've found a solution. Check out this Instructables entry on growing potatoes in old tires.
Chitting
means that when you receive your seed potatoes in around February, you place them in a light, dry environment, but out of direct sunlight (a north facing window sill is a good place) and wait for small shoots to grow from the
eye of the potato, which should be facing up. When looking at a potato, you will notice that one end will usually have more eyes than the other end, this is called the rose end. Early potatoes need to be chitted before being planted, while maincrop varieties don't absolutely need it but will benefit from being chitted before being planted.
If growing potatoes in tires, first chose a sunny spot in your garden or balcony. Ensure there is drainage below the tire, as potatoes don't like getting water-logged, though they do need sufficient water for the tubers to form.
Early potatoes can be planted at the end of March, while maincrop potatoes are usually planted in April, at the latest at the beginning of May. The main aspect affecting planting time is frost. Potatoes are only half-hardy and any frost will kill off emerging plants.
Fill the tire with damp earth to just over half the depth and place 4 - 5 seed potatoes in it, with the eye or shoots facing up. Cover with a couple of inches of soil.
In this example, we have used seed potatoes for a maincrop which have not been chitted.
Keep the soil moist but not wet and within about six weeks there should be several healthy potato plants growing. If your seed potatoes were chitted, the plants should appear sooner.
If there is any chance of a late frost, protect the young plants with straw or earth them up immediately as they appear.
When the young potato plants are two to three inches high, add a second tire to the stack and add more soil, almost but not quite covering them.
Continue covering the emerging plants with soil until your stack is 3 tires high. Tubers will be forming all the way up the stack of tires.
Early potatoes are ready to harvest when the flowers have opened or the buds fallen off. Dig a few tubers up and check—they should be about the size of a hen's egg.
With maincrop potatoes, wait until the foliage has turned brown, cut off at the stems and wait a few days before lifting.
One of the cons of the traditional method of growing potatoes in long rows, is that you have to ensure you have dug up every single tuber each autumn. Growing potatoes in tires avoids the possibility of missing that one tiny potato which would ruin your carrot patch next year!
Feb 26, 2019 1 comment The links in the post below may be affiliate links. Read the full disclosure
There’s something special about growing your own food. In years past I have loved going out to the garden as I prepare dinner and pick fresh herbs, tomatoes, carrots, cucumbers, and more!
Personally, I think that garden fresh veggies taste more vibrant and are just fun to grow.
So, I decided that I want to try growing potatoes in tires because it looked interesting and my family loves potatoes baked, mashed, as a salad, in a soup, and just about any way that they can be prepared!
Here’s a little bit of information about when to plant your potatoes:
The main thing affecting planting time is frost; potatoes are only half-hardy and any frost will kill off emerging plants.
What you will need:
I just happened to have a stack of tires from when we changed over the tires on our van, but I have also gone to our local tire store and asked them for their trash tires. They were happy to give me all I needed for free.
After you get your tires, make sure to wash off the tire grime! I used our pressure washer, but you could also use the jet stream on your garden hose. My big kids had a lot of fun running the pressure washer! I came behind them to scrub them down and do a final rinse down before calling it good.
After I washed the tires I cut away the sidewall so that I would have more growing room. Honestly, this was the hardest part of the whole tire planting process, but it went pretty quick once I figured out a good technique with my utility knife.
IMPORTANT: Please make sure to always handle the knife safely by cutting away from you to prevent cutting fingers or legs. I also slipped on work gloves because after handling the first tire bare-handed they were raw.
So, I recommend the gloves! 🙂
Potatoes love water, but they don’t love sitting in it, so make sure there is drainage below the tire. I chose the spot that I would use for my tire to sit and then cleared away the ground to make it level.
I also removed the weeds, then covered the area with 1-2″ of small river rock. After getting the ground ready I placed the tires where I wanted them then added additional rock to bring it up to the rim of the tire.
Next, fill the tire with soil/potting mix/compost to just over half the depth of the tire. I used a mix of all three in equal amounts, but you can also use straw in the mix in order to prevent the soil from compacting. Loose and airy soil = room for the taters to grow! Now you’re ready to plant!
To get your potatoes ready, cut the potatoes into about 2-inch cubes with at least one eye per cube.
Allow the potato pieces to sit out overnight to scab over which helps to prevent molding and diseases. Here’s a picture of my potato seeds before planting:
Next, place 4 seed potatoes in the tire equally spaced, with the eye or shoots facing up, and then cover with a couple of inches of soil. Once you have your potatoes covered, keep the soil moist, and in about 6 weeks you will have healthy plants growing!
When the young potato plants are 2 – 3 inches high, add a second tire to the stack and add more soil, almost but not quite covering them. Continue covering the plants with soil until your stack is 2-3 tires high.
Potatoes (tubers) will be forming all the way up the stack of tires. Be cautious in keeping the potatoes covered while they are growing. Exposed potatoes may become toxic, and you don’t want to have to toss out all of the hard work you are doing!
Enjoy your beautiful harvest of potatoes – I can hardly wait to see how this will turn out!
During this process, I stepped back to ask myself whether or not growing potatoes in tires was going to be safe for my family.
After doing a lot of reading and researching about the topic, I came to my own conclusion that there is just not enough evidence to suggest that the tires cause harm while growing veggies inside of them. You will have to make that decision for yourself, but I also ran across this and wanted to share how this gardener answered the question in depth.
If you’re wanting to use something other than a tire, check out this handy planter!
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Anna Medvedeva
I don't want to dig, but I want to rest! And here's some advice on how to cut down on the effort of planting potatoes for the May holidays
Wet conditions this spring have created ideal conditions for heavy soil compaction in many Russian regions. And by the May Day holidays, when summer residents go to plant potatoes, the earth is unlikely to have time to dry out, especially when it comes to heavy and clay soil. It's scary to think that you have to turn the earthen layers with a shovel, and then treat your chondrosis! nine0004
Don't worry, take the advice of Andrey Chuikov, a gardener in Vladimir from the Suzdal region.
This year he will do so.
- If the spring is good, then I let the area under the potatoes under the cultivator. But this year the big digging is cancelled, at least for May. Loosening after rains is a thankless task, and my first planting will be on top of the beds after onions.
What I'll do right now as the sun starts to scorch is remove the mulch from last year's onion beds (turn the onions on the potatoes) and spray weed seedlings with a homemade herbicide at the rate of a tablespoon of vodka per glass of water plus a drop of dishwashing liquid . I don’t have a lot of weeds, and I don’t feel sorry for cheap vodka. The sun will dry the weeds. And while they are drying, I will choose the smallest thing and lay out the potatoes for sprouting in the sun. In this case, it is not necessary to cut the tubers into pieces. In wet conditions, the pieces will rot. nine0004
Then I will go to my friends' stables and bring some straw. During planting, I will spread the potatoes directly on the ground about 30 centimeters apart and cover with a 50/50 mixture of straw and rotted compost.
I will add wood ash after trimming.
You should get decent piles of about thirty centimeters. Now it's time to water. And in a couple of weeks the tops will break through. I will spud with the same straw mixture and make sure that the tubers are well covered. If it gets cold again after planting, I will cover the straw mound with plastic. nine0004
This is a convenient way that does not hurt your back. In addition, you can choose ripe potatoes, as they say, on demand, from straw, without digging up the entire plant. In general, the height of a straw pile for a good harvest will end up being about half a meter. And the same material at the end of the season is embedded in the ground for the subsequent winter garlic.
Probably, it is worth recalling the old trick to those who have everything overgrown with weeds or occupied by lawns, but suddenly there was a desire to grow their own potatoes without delving into agronomic wisdom. Here you need tires and, again, straw. nine0004
We close the selected place with sheets of cardboard and put the first tire.
Fill to the top with straw and lay out about 6 seed potatoes (here you can take chopped pieces). Cover with straw. We put another tire on top, again we “bring in” straw and potatoes.
Repeat until there are four or five stacks. Now we water and cover with the top layer of the most fertile soil that you find nearby, without weeds and pests, 5 cm. In the season, of course, we continue to water so that the straw is slightly damp, but not wet. nine0004
By the time of harvesting the first harvest, the tops will rise thirty centimeters above the stack.
You remove the top stack and take the tenderest potatoes, even if they are not too large. Wait a couple of weeks - and remove the next tire and so on to the very bottom. There is a desire - feed with liquid leaf fertilizer, they say they are in the top.
Of course, potatoes in tires, with or without fertilizer, will not surprise you with their huge size in principle. The smaller the space, the smaller the tubers. On the other hand, even with small early potatoes, you can cook delicious dishes, bake or fry in their skins.
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You can also read about the tire garden here.
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Vertical cultivation of potatoes in the West is a fairly common occurrence among gardeners. By planting a dozen tubers in several bags, large bags, boxes or barrels, you can end up with a crop of several buckets of potatoes. We are still new to this method. We are accustomed to calling potatoes the second bread and growing them in much larger quantities: so that we have enough for ourselves, our relatives, and for feeding animals. But today more and more summer residents refuse to grow potatoes in general, they say, it costs a penny, and there is enough trouble with it for the whole summer. If you also think so, but at the same time do not want to forget the incredible taste of your young potatoes, try growing it in a bag, box or barrel - the result will surely please you.
nine0004 Potatoes in bags, barrels, bags and boxes - a harvest for the lazy
Read also our article 5 reasons why I no longer plant potatoes.
It is this method that allows you to get the fastest harvest (of course, when choosing early-ripening varieties), because the mobile "beds" warm up the fastest.
Eliminates the need for hilling potatoes and weed control - the dream of every lazy gardener! This method of growing potatoes is also suitable for those who have a small plot. Barrels and boxes of potatoes will help give the site an original look. nine0004
When growing potatoes in bags and barrels, the root system of the plant grows much longer than when planting potatoes in the usual way. And since the number of roots depends on how many tubers are formed, the harvest will always be excellent.
And the most interesting - potatoes in buckets and large flower containers can be successfully grown not in the garden or in the garden, but at home - a sunny loggia or balcony will do.
In addition, vertical-bed potatoes:
And it's also a matter of reusing materials (waste containers, old bags, sacks, barrels), which means taking care of the environment. At the same time, vertical beds for potatoes can be very diverse. For example:
Over time, all barrels become unusable. It is no longer possible to pour water if, for example, the bottom of the barrel is leaky. Basically, this applies to metal containers. But plastic can suffer due to mechanical damage.
nine0004
If the metal barrels are old and untidy, then it makes sense to paint them before planting potatoes. At the same time, you can show creativity and imagination by creating beautiful pictures or original ornaments on the outside of this container.
If there are few holes in the bottom of the metal barrel, make them with a nail and a hammer. For such an impact on a plastic barrel, you can use a drill with a drill or heat a nail and carefully make holes in the bottom of the barrel with it. If for growing potatoes you will place the barrel horizontally, then make holes for water drainage on the side of the barrel, and on the other hand - larger ones to plant potatoes. nine0004
At the bottom of a vertical container, drainage is poured with a layer of 15-20 cm. These can be medium-sized stones, broken bricks (for horizontal "beds" this and subsequent layers should be of a lower height).
Grass cuttings, chopped straw, fallen leaves, compost can be placed on top of the drain to a height of 30-50 cm.
Then light fertile soil is poured into the barrel with a layer of approximately 15 cm.
The soil is well watered from a watering can. For 5 liters of water, it would be good to add 1 tbsp. a spoonful of potassium humate. You can also spill this vertical bed with water and a universal liquid mineral fertilizer. nine0004
On the surface of this layer of soil lay the tubers eyes up at a distance of 15 cm from each other. From above, the potatoes are covered with earth - 15 cm.
When the shoots are 2 weeks old, the first "hilling" is performed. To do this, simply pour the earth under the bushes. Then they do the same two or three more times. As a result, the potatoes will be well covered with earth, which stimulates the formation of additional roots and tubers, while the roots do not turn green.
Since the barrels are limited in size, it is important to water them in time, because the earth here will dry out quickly. It is better to install such mobile beds in advance where something obscures them so that the soil does not overheat.
In this case, the seedlings must be in the light. nine0004 Large oilcloth bags, bags of flour, sugar, large and dense garbage bags are suitable for growing potatoes. © Antonov Sad
All recommendations for planting and growing potatoes in barrels are also relevant for potatoes in bags and bags. Large oilcloth bags, flour bags, sugar bags, large and dense garbage bags will do. These containers do not take up much space, they can be placed in a free area, where the summer resident wishes. nine0004
To make it easier to "dig" the potatoes planted in this way, you can cut a rectangular hole in the bottom of the bag or bag. Velcro is attached to this flap, paired elements are sewn around the cut hole. Then it will be possible sometimes to see if the crop is ripe, and if necessary, take a few large potatoes, leaving the bush to grow further.
Read also our article Potatoes under straw.
If it is possible to use tires from wheels, they also make an excellent vertical bed for potatoes.
You can immediately install several pieces one on top of the other, or build such a "Leaning Tower of Pisa" gradually, as the potatoes grow.
First you need to dig up the earth according to the diameter of the wheel, add fertilizer or compost to the soil. Then plant the potatoes with their eyes up. Now you need to put a tire around it and fill it to the top with light soil.
When the seedlings have grown to a height of 15 cm, a second cover is placed on top of the first cover. The earth is also poured into it, this will also be “hilling up” at the same time. nine0004
You can stop there, but it is better to use 1-2 more tires and add more soil as the potatoes grow. Harvest will certainly please you.
If it is possible to use tires from wheels, then they will also make an excellent vertical bed for potatoes This method will allow you to get your potatoes even in a city apartment. If you have two large plastic pots that are slightly different in size, then cut rectangular holes on the sides in a small one.
