ton of taters in a barrel?

[browndude3649]

Spoke to a landscaper today and he told me aboot a way to get mucho taters from a wine barrel. Put 12" soilin the bottom of barrel plant taters. Of course the head os the barrel is sawed off. When the shoot stick up from soil cover with a layerof straw. Wauit till shoots poke out again and do another layer of straw and so on. So every layer will produce taters.
Is this true? Or tall tales?

[TZ-OH6]

Partially true. Most common potato vareities are somewhat determinate and put out all of their spuds at one time/one level, so the deep burrying trick almost never works better for anyone (you get the same production as growing normally). You can grow potatoes in barrels, trashbags/grow bags, etc with good soil in the bottom and mulch on top. The tubers will grow into the mulch or at the top of the soil under the mulch. You can also grow potatoes on the ground and instead of hilling them, mulch deeply. That way you don't have to dig.

[Tom Wagner]

TZ has it right when he says most potatoes are deterinate. A potato that is late maturing and indeterminate would work much better. A potato variety that sends out new stolons on a regular basis would work splendid.

Many years ago I tried the variety McINTYRE
and had good results. Not even sure that variety is available anymore....oh, wait a minute...go to this site to see a picture of the vine...http://www.inspection.gc.ca/english/...yre/142e.shtml

I have a number of clones from around the world that would do well in a barrel and hundreds more out of my collection of personally bred lines. That makes me think...... maybe I should interest one of my friends to help me put together PDF files of potatoes for barrels, along with pictures, varieties, and available potato tubers to maybe even buy for such barrels.

I have a number of lines whose first stolons emerge out many feet from the original seed piece and those new plants begin heavy tuberization as the days get shorter, all the while creating hundreds of blooms creating a virtual flower bed from a single tuber in a stack of Farmall H tractor rear tires.

My supposition is that folks would like a variety of tuber colors produced from a barrel or stack of tires. I wonder if anyone would like a combination of red, red flesh, blue, white, yellow, fingerling potatoes all designed for a barrel?

Since I specialized in TPS (true potato seed) for so many decades (6) I could demonstrate on a PDF how to construct a quasi cold frame out of a tire with true seed dispersed and covered with plastic, polycarbonate panels, glass frame, etc., early in the Spring. As the seedlings grow, soil media is added to half of the seedling height each time, until more and more tires are added. The tallest plants would survive this practice and the short ones would be buried. One could start with say one hundred seedlings and end up with the most vigorous 6 or 7.

The fun thing I see about this is that it would establish growing potatoes in a barrel/tire as an evolving venture. Participants could trial brand new varieties, TPS, and report back on the experience. Too many folks think that potatoes are a waste of time and space for their small garden, patio, balcony, and retail shops. If I could...pick out a word....(inspire, accelerate, amaze, animate, astound, awaken, delight, electrify, elicit, energize, feed the fire, induce, intensify, jolt, kindle, rouse, vex, or whet) a Renaissance of home grown potatoes....it would be worth it.

I am very partial to blue flowered potatoes, and my Blue Rose potato variety is not disappointing me again this year. The TPS of Blue Rose gives a range of colors from purple to blue. They also seem very indeterminate this year and If I would not dig them would bloom til frost. This history of Blue Rose is that it will have fully mature potatoes under the hill even as new tubers are bulking and new stolons are initiated. This would be an excellent source of germplasm for barrel/tire production of potatoes.

Typing this discourse made me think of another vexing problem people have with barrels and tires. Way too many varieties die down too soon, succumb to early blight, late blight, verticillium, etc., therefore the success of a dedicated provider of potato varieties to this project will have to have the best disease tolerance possible. Tearing down the barrel/tire potato bed could be done at any time after a goodly number of potato tubers are formed...and still the plants could be green and blooming instead of yellowed and spotted.

According to Cornell Univ., I have one of the most resistant PINK ROT resistant red potatoes ever. Pink Rot resistance is important as potatoes in a wel environment are subject to soft rot. This red potato is in many progenies. Another problem with some varieties is that they have prominent lenticels. Here is a picture that shows the enlarged areas that are important in that....

Diffusion into the potato tuber of oxygen for respiration takes place only through lenticels, and not through the rest of the periderm

and many problems could be averted with potatoes with more workable lenticels for pot culture.

I have some other ideas of how to grow potatoes.... in a tall tunnel bag.... and harvest tubers from the lower levels and allowing the top parts of the potato vine to continue growing and producing tubers. Could be another project for a PDF.

Tom Wagner

[mdvpc]

Tom:

I am getting ready to plant the potatoes you sent me a couple of months ago.

Your posting some plans you are thinking about is really interesting. I am going to plant in a grow bag. I am going to plant the whole small potato, using most, if not all of the potatoes you sent me in probably about 3-5 containers.

In reading on the web, for a first-time grower, it's confusing. A short posting about how to go about planting and growing in containers would be very appreciated by many folks from a potato guru like you.

[salix]

Tom, are you just teasing us?

[amideutch]

A very interesting idea indeed. To me growing in a container and being able to control what you use for an aggregate, mulch, ferts would be a plus and also disease control would be more effective. Potatoes have been grown with good results hydroponically in Perlite and granulated Rockwool. The Mittleider method of using Grow-Box's would also work very well. Ami

[Tom Wagner]

I may be guilty of playfully tantalizing you and others, but I am deadly serious about the subject.

I want to shift the paradigm of growing potatoes in limited areas. The barrel, tire, grow bag, bucket, and other containers are all part of it. If I can get my act together, I will get some help to produce a series of PDF infomercials about how to construct some devices and suggest varieties or TPS to go along with them. I could talk about variations in the soil media and maybe even provide a special organic formula of unique nutrients to get started on a project.

I suppose I should take photographs and videos of many example of structures and varieties with time lapse shots. I may start out modestly and grow the project as necessary. If I can't make my own variety creations an important part of the effort, I would not continue.

No reason why we can't get 10 lbs or more per plant if one does it right. We may even get potatoes like this...http://img2.allvoices.com/thumbs/eve...-the-giant.jpg

That 8lb 4 oz potato (Kondor) could be a contest challenge. I even have some ideas how to do grow something like this huge single tuber. I need some volunteers in the local area to help me grow out a number of introductory trials. I think my Paint Jar variety would be a good staring point. It grows to over six feet high, very upright with a central stem and with a bit of trellising I could easily make it grow to ten feet or more. It also sets very light in number. Oh, wait a minute, I don't want to give away all my ideas yet.

Some of you may have had some experience with potato grow bag versions. Few of those seem to come with rollup sides for further growth.

My Lumber yard owner friend may have some odd boards from his saw mill, and he has lots of hybrid poplars on his farm. That lumber is not worth much but the split logs could be used in a long trough out in the field supported by two posts dug into the ground at a 45 degree angle. It would have those X;s every so many feet to support the split logs as the soil media is filled in each time a split log is added on both sides. The first to be planted in the vortex would be the indeterminate potato variety. As the boards are added a row of medium maturity tubers could be planted, and so on until the mass of soil is several feet above the original soil line. The last spuds to be planted could be super early potatoes 45 to 75 day maturities. The harvest could begin simply by removing one split rail at a time as needed. More later

[salix]

What a concept! Just like planting fall bulbs, deep tulips, medium depth hyacinth and crocus planted shallowly in the same spot. Now why didn't I think of doing the same with potatoes?

[amideutch]

Tom, next year I would'nt mind trying a couple container grow outs using your TPS. I would go with what you recommend for varieties. Ami

[browndude3649]

Well this thread turned out waaay better than i expected. TY for posting up!
I have a barrel with the head cut off one end, now i'm gonna got find some straw.

[TZ-OH6]

I used contractor clean up bags (heavy duty trash bags) from Home Depot/Lowes with 10-15 gallons of old potting mix in each of them (2-3 five gallon buckets full)....a few holes poked in the bottom for drainage. I rolled the bags down and then added dried leaves for mulch as the plants grew up. I leaned some plywood boards against them to keep the sun off of the black bags. It worked pretty well, especially for harvesting, but I didn't keep up with the watering enough so the tubers were small.

[imp]

I wonder what types/names of potatoes would do well in a grow bag or tire stacking system?

Having a small gardening area has limited us from growing potatoes, but this sounds quite like a good idea.

Would Kerr's pink or Maris piper grow well in a grow bag?

[wmontanez]

I am pretty sure Tom has some suggestions, some of varieties of the Tater sampler he sent me this year continue to grow tall and did not die until October but I had them hill in the ground.

Different color Fingerlings in a tall bag/container sounds fun!

[Medbury Gardens]

This will become an interesting thread if a few do want to get involved in such experiment as growing in wine barrows, tires etc.
I have a potato that i think would be ideal for this,its called Moie moie and it tends to grow lots of bulblets on the stems above ground,
Are these the types that are suitable Tom??

[imp]

Hopefully, Tom or someone will pop in and make some variety suggestions....