Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Trash Can Potatoes

The Trash Can
The strong one sliced off the top of an old trash can, drilled holes in the bottom, and filled it with rocks (for drainage) and soil.



The Potatoes
The cook, who still isn't sure which side of a potato is up, pushed 2 wrinkled and sprouting potatoes, one Red Bliss, one Yukon Gold, into the soil and had this harvest about 4 weeks later.


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Photos: Bix

10 comments:

caulfieldkid said...

Some dirt, water, and a little sunshine squeezes out new life. This stuff just never gets old for me. . .

shaun

Autumn Hoverter, MS, RD said...

Fantastic! They look lovely!

Suzanne said...

For some reason I thought I had to wait until fall to harvest. Do I pull up the whole plant? Or just grab a few and leave the plant?

Bix said...

Suzanne, you're probably right, about waiting until fall. I don't know, maybe someone can chime in. Can you pull up just a few? I'm flying by the seat of my pants here.

I think I did pull them up too soon, they were tiny things. But the leaves were looking a little dire and they seemed to have stopped growing.

Perovskia said...

Fantastic!! :)

splintergroupie said...

Hi, gardener here. I've been following your blog for a couple months and appreciate your work.

"New" potatoes can be first harvested about the time of flowering by gently pulling the smallish tubers from the soil, and then the plants pour their energy into making more tubers. If you leave them be until the tops die back and fall over in autumn, you can harvest all of them, all at once, and get some lumpers, but harvesting all at once is for convenience not necessity.

Potatoes do well in cool, moist conditions, so your container crop may have stopped growing due to heat stress. The container is dark-colored, which makes the soil and roots hotter.

Bix said...

Well, thank you for that!

I planted some more. I'll try nudging a few small ones out instead of pulling up the whole plant.

Angela and Melinda said...

Wow, how cool is that?! So you just used store-bought potatoes? Only 4 weeks--amazing!

Bix said...

Yes store-bought. I'm so lucky they sprouted. I think they use sprout inhibitors on commercial potatoes?

I replanted a few of the ones I harvested to make sure they aren't treated.

Bix said...

shaun, it never gets old for me either. I was out there every day checking the growth, first thing in the morning.

I'm so glad the potato knows what to do.