Growing Potatoes

 I've always heard lots of stories about growing potatoes. I'm told my grandfather grew them in 44 gallon drums and had to either chip them out carefully or cut the drum because he was so successful. 

But there are so many stories and different ways of doing it. They need a lot of water, but water sparingly or they'll rot in the ground. Plant potatoes to prepare a plot for future gardens, but not anywhere where you're going to want anything else because they will keep coming back forever. Cover them completely when you mound them up but leave some leaf tips above ground. 

A few years ago I tried growing them in tyres. As it grows, you fill up the tyre and then add another. When you're ready to harvest, tip your tyre pile over and pick up the potatoes. It worked beautifully. 

Dad and Hubby weren't convinced, so the year of the super garden we had both tyres and traditional rows that got mounded up. There were more potatoes in the mounds but they were mostly very small, think golf ball sized. In the tyres, they grew to easily fist-sized and bigger, but there were fewer of them. We still got an excellent crop and didn't need to buy potatoes for most of the year. We also kept Mum and Dad in potatoes. 

I'm doing tyres again this year. Mostly, I'm finding where potatoes are popping up from previous years crops and putting a tyre on top. Some are taking off and some are slower. 

I'm filling the tyres with layers of grass clippings, manure, leaf litter and wood mulch. 

I am curious to see how high I can get some of them before they start flowering.