Joshua Bertram

Thanks for the video.  Yeah, I'm sold on the whole deep litter method.  When I first watched Paul/Back to Eden, and light bulb went off in my head.

I might be doing it all wrong, but I've had great results so far.  

I've had my in ground concrete swimming pool filled with free wood chips for about 8-10 years now.  It collects rain water (only 8" of rain per year here), towards the deep end.  The wood chips are about three to four feet high in the deep end, and 2' to 3' are constantly submerged in the water.  I find that digging down about a foot is the sweet spot for life, particularly worms.  Oddly the anaerobic water smells sweet, and my chickens regularly drink it if I dig a hole deep enough.  I will sometimes bury guts/carcasses into the pool, most of my yard waste, scraps, anything organic basically goes into the pool.  I used to raise meat rabbits in there along with the chickens, but it was more hassle than it was worth for me so I stopped doing that.

Every couple of years or so, the water level gets too high, so I put a bilge in the deep end, and pump out thousands of gallons of the dark brown compost tea around the yard.  

I used a large wooden frame with 1/2" hardware cloth to sift the compost to use in my raised beds/pots/anywhere I can use it.  It smells sweet, and it seems to grow things.

Here's what I did with my long concrete driveway that goes east/west.  Best thing I ever did. https://permies.com/t/135737/Urban-concrete-driveway-evolution-Lot

So I dug up the ones that were planted in the ground yesterday.  My soil here is heavy clay, so I dug a one foot deep, by one foot wide trench, and back filled it with compost so the slips would be happier growing into potatoes, (also so it would hopefully be easier to dig them out).  It was a bit easier to dig them out, but it was still surprisingly laborious, especially compared to having them in containers.

I had a total of 16 single slips, planted about one foot apart.  The far end of the row got a bit of morning shade from my palm trees, so I think that's why the weight of the last few was so little.  The results were fairly inconsistent compared to the pots, as well as being less weight on average.   From the sixteen plants, I got a total of 73lb 9oz, or an average of 4lb 9.6oz each.  
Results each, 5lb 11.3oz, 3lb 8.9oz, 3lb 0.9, 3lb 10.4oz, 2lb 13.3oz, 5lb 8.9oz, 5lb 1.8oz, 5lb 4.3oz, 8lb 1.3oz, 5lb 3.0oz 5lb 1.0oz, 3lb 3.8oz 1lb 2.7oz, 4lb 14.5oz, 2lb 0.8oz, 1lb 10.9oz.
Nothing to complain about, but not nearly as good as the containers.

A whopping total of 269lbs 11oz!!!  My dogs, chickens, and I may turn purple by the time we run out of eating them....

I'm actually thinking about doubling up next year and trying to sell some.  

Judith, yes, you're right.  I think I'm not getting anything huge because I planted two or three slips per container.  Maybe one or two is better.  Thank you also for posting up the info about them.  I had planned on harvesting after the first frost, but when I read that the tubers could be damaged from soil temps below 55f I decided I'd better pull them now since they're in containers.  

That being said, I was WRONG about the plastic containers outdoing the fabric.  WOW!!!  196lbs I weighed in last night!!!  I can't believe it, and I don't expect anyone else to either!  Maybe my maths is wrong......
Plastic containers:  First one I did was 8lbs even, (that was a couple of weeks ago in the first picture I posted).  + 10lb 7.0oz, +9lb 10.1oz, + 7lb 1.2oz, + 10lb 8.2oz, + 12lb 8.8oz, + 12lb 14.8oz.

So the plastic containers totaled 71lbs 6oz at an average of 10lb 3oz per container.

For the fabric I had 6lb 13.5oz, + 6lb 11.1oz, + 7lb 12.4oz, + 7lb 6.1oz, + 6lb 10.5oz, +8lb 2.3oz, + 8lb 1.4oz, + 7lb 12.4oz, + 7lb 14.1oz, + 9lb 7.7oz, + 8lb 5.9oz, +8lb 13.9oz, + 8lb 1.10z, + 8lb 8.2oz, + 8lb 3.0oz.

The fabric containers totaled 124lb 15oz at an average of 8lb 5oz per bag.

I still have about about 20 more plants in the ground to go!  I planted them different than normal, and I'll make a long rambling post when I pull those out.  Oh yeah

I did weigh a lot of the smaller roots that I probably will not eat, and a lot of gumball sized ones, not to mention there is still a fair amount of moist soil on them, so let's just call it 175lbs!!!  :)  Oh yeah, the biggest ones were just under two pounds, so no monsters (probably due to how many slips were in each container).

I'm sold on growing them in pots at this point.  The good I've observed, no bug damage thus far from any of them I've grown in pots, easier to drop them out and find ALL of them easily just by sifting through the loose soil, fairly consistent results, medium large containers seem to be doing better than large, or x-large.
The bad, a lot of very small potatoes, having to use plastic/fabric vs natural soil, having to water them more, and no very large potatoes vs what I've grown in the ground.

Plastic pots vs fabric pots.  Huge difference in the root binding around the plastic pots vs almost no root binding with the fabric pots.  The fabric pots seemed to edge out the plastic pots so far as far as size/yield, but I haven't weighed anything yet so I might be wrong.   In my desert climate (no measurable rain all summer, ultra low humidity, high temps normally between 100f - 105f) the fabric grow bags would need more water compared to the plastic, but the way I did it, the fabric pots actually got much less water than the plastic pots.  I dug out a channel the width of the fabric grow bags about 2" deep, and put a plastic tarp in the bottom and up the sides 2" or so to catch the water runoff from going into the soil beneath and being wasted, I also made sure the foliage covered most of the grow bag so no direct sun could get on the bags once established.

The soil was a bit different in some of the plastic pots as well.  More than half was my homemade compost, and the rest of it was more of a potting mix with a lot of perlite, vs the fabric grow bags were 100% filled with my homemade wood chip compost.

I did fertilize exactly the same, and I used Alaska fish fertilizer (the regular stuff, and also the Alaska "mor bloom"  (0-10-10) every couple of weeks up until about July, and then nothing but water until now.

Hi Samantha,
I don't cure mine, I tried it once and they started to mold.  I just throw them in my room temperature pantry (well I try not to use a heater, so it's probably 60f-70f most of the time during the winter) and they last until spring.  I ate all of last year's so I had to buy new ones this season.   I can start so early (Feb-Mar), and harvest so late (Nov-Dec) mine don't need to stay in storage but a few months or so.  Rarely do they rot, but some will every year.  I just toss them out to the chickens/compost.

Ten pounds per plant is awesome!  If I can get half of that per plant I'll be one happy guy!

Good luck!

I know nothing, and I'm a terrible gardener (yield wise, anyway), but if I could only grow one plant for food, it'd be the sweet potato.  They love it here in the desert southwest.  I've had plenty of failures with them (watch the video for proof), but all in all I generally do well growing them.  I went crazy this year and planted about 70'ish slips mostly in containers, and about 20 or so in the ground.  I planted two to three slips per 15 gallon nursery pot (closer to a 5 gallon bucket in size).  I haven't harvested yet since there's still some time left until my first frost.  

The first plant I pulled was from a plastic 10 gallon nursery container?  It's about the same diameter as a 5 gallon bucket, but several inches shorter in height.  I used a mix of old potting mix I save every year, and I mixed in a bunch of my chicken litter/wood chip compost.  I fertilized with some Alaska fish fertilizer a half a dozen times up until about July, and then they just got plain water (very hard, mineralized, chlorinated, city water).   I'm dreaming of 200lbs, but I will be thrilled if I get over 50lbs, lol.  The first plant I pulled got me all excited because it had 8lbs exactly, then I pulled three other GIANT plastic containers, and only 8oz total from all three!!!  I was bummed.  

Every plant in the yard came from three organic Stokes purple sweet potatoes I got at Smith's grocery store in February.  I started propagating them in February, and to my surprise they started forming shoots within days (first time that's happened).  I was up to my ears in slips/shoots and from those three potatoes I got probably over 150 usable shoots.  I gave some to the veterans at the veterans home I work at (super cool to see them growing at work!!!), and a bunch of others to my neighbors.  I started putting them in grow bags and plastic containers in the beginning of March in my greenhouse, then I ran out of room in the greenhouse, and started rooting them is large plastic red cups so I could transplant them to larger containers outside around May.  

I'll upload some pics of what I actually got in a few weeks or so (first frost here).   I can't upload the iphone images from the phone I was using.

Here's a cheesy video of my rambling about it.  I'm not too good at videos.  I did use ai for the thumbnail, and it did a great job!  

edit, let's see if my other pictures will work.

edit again.  I figured out how to convert them.

Let's bring this back from the dead.

Small Jeep trailer, one extension ladder again, and one 16' long cattle panel.

Still works like a charm.  If you can carry a ladder on the roof of your car, you can rig a cattle panel to it.

Edit, a red coffee can works great as a makeshift red flag.

I thought there was a new post, but apparently it was a false alarm.  Something about welders in my email.

It was fortuitous timing?  My very first welding project/gate just came back home to see me!  It lived in San Jose, CA where I made it.  It moved to Eugene, OR, where it stayed a couple of years hanging out.  Then it decided to go via U-haul to Millcreek UT, where it stood around doing what gates do for a couple of years, and then it showed up right here in sunny southern Utah this last week!  I used a rusty patina paint, when I built it, and it's in perfect condition still to this day!

RIP Sydney!  Best dog ever!  This was the gate for her play area.  I made it around 1995, and last saw it around 2000.

I think I can proudly call myself a mastergater at this point.

Here are some songs about permaculture it made.  It's too good, and this is the worst it will ever be.  There are already better versions coming out that sound better, and make longer songs.



folk'ish permie songs

https://suno.com/song/44987f2d-b10d-416a-9710-a05ef9e7ea05
https://suno.com/song/98551632-69ae-4e41-b7d3-dccbafb8ad9b

rock'ish permie song (2 versions)

https://suno.com/song/076be622-d155-42b0-ad73-2058112e3434
https://suno.com/song/19a18e5c-7c97-4f2d-9a65-257bf2f366ac

rap'ish permie song (2 versions)
https://suno.com/song/df6d6ba7-781d-41ad-8b41-a99d920faad4  
https://suno.com/song/99c1df09-cfb2-4187-a929-f1a6afc7199b