Potato Towers

A very clever Amish trick

Hi John,
Interesting information, did you try it yourself? What are your results?

Bill Whitson is kind of a potato expert and wrote an article (with contradictory findings) you might find interesting about this a few years ago: https://www.cultivariable.com/potato-towers/
 
 
 

Nynke, no I have not, I never seem to get going with any vegetable planting, which is why I thought the tower was clever.
Christopher, thank you for the surprising counter case for the towers.
For those not inclined to look up Chris's referenec
HERE IS SOME OF IT
'I want to clarify exactly what I mean by “doesn’t work.”  I always get some angry responses when I claim that towers don’t work.
I am not saying that you can’t grow potatoes in a tower or even that you can’t get good yields in a tower.
I am saying that you won’t get better results with a tower than you can obtain under similar growing conditions without the additional levels of hilling.
 You will almost certainly get worse results with a tower if you do perform all that additional hilling.
(Growing conditions vary, and in some climates it might still work out for you, but it will be success in spite of your efforts.)  
It is specifically the claim that towers are able to produce greater yields due to the production of more layers of tubers that is wrong. '
ALSO;
Hilling up much beyond six inches brings no benefits and is likely to reduce yield.
The purpose of hilling is not to stimulate production of tubers, but to protect the tubers from the environment.
Potato yield is primarily limited by foliage area, not by the amount of soil above the seed tuber.
Indeterminate (late) potatoes do not form tubers in a different way than determinate (early/mid) potatoes.  They just grow longer.
Conventional container growing works fine with potatoes but potato towers don’t work.

So I am guessing at the moment and will look for more evidence.

This Preppers video, shows them working;
Its starts at 7.41 minutes

Hi John,

Like you, I want potato towers to work, but never really gave it a try. I did start a few times, but I never got past the first hilling. I have watched a lot of videos on this and learned something about the determined and indetermined varieties.
I think both video's you posted are verry interesting. The last one because it is so honest about failure.

What I noticed when watching the first video, was a large discrepancy between the text and the images provided. The dimension and specifically ratio's between dimensions were really off, just like the numbers (tekst says:"plant 4 potatoes", picture shows 5).
When I just look at the pictures in the video, I notice that they tell a completely different story:
1. It looks like new potatoes are planted at each layer;
2. The stems are horizontal in stead of vertical.
I wonder if there is some clue in this?

Christoffer's article seems reliable. The second video confirms it, especially the dryness of the tower despite irrigation. Personally, I can confirm their positive experience with volunteer potatoes.

However if the dryness can be solved e.g. in a different climate, or a different type of tower; and new potatoes are placed at each layer, near the center; and the stems are trained horizontal, towards the outside of the tower, it might be a way to grow a more potatoes on a small footprint though. Because they grow above ground, they are easy to harvest. Maybe I will give it a try this year. If so, I will post the results here.

I have tried towers. Results were not spectacular, but they sure were easy to harvest! And they left me with nicely amended soil.

I am trying it this year. I’m going to use bales of “straw as my towers” hoping that this will keep the potatoes from drying out.
Going to layer a mixture of hay and soil for the planting .🤞

Several years back I did a similar thing with 3/4 of a feed bag - cut the bottom 1/4 of the bag off and stand it up.  The instructions were to start placing soil in the bag and add seed potatoes and then more soil and more seed potatoes, etc.  I followed the instructions the the tee and even bought seed potatoes!! I usually only getting some good looking regular potatoes from an organic store and cutting them up leaving an eye in each piece.

After the tops died off and before the first frost I pulled the sack over and sure enough, it was every easy to get through the dirt and find the exact number of potatoes that I had planted - no more and no less.  They definitely grew from the seed potatoes used, but there was only one potato per plant that came up.  Big waste of time, money and energy.

Many times I have seen a number of variations and someday when I have loads of composted soil I will try three or four different ways.  Until then I make my mounds and plug in regular potatoes and hand dig in the fall - usually only 20 to 30 plants.

I have tried potato towers, but layered compost, seed potato, straw, compost, seed potato, straw, etc. My problem was where I located them as it was full sun, but windy and far from the water source so they didn't get watered often enough to keep from drying out.
This year I plan to move the towers closer to a water source. I like the idea that the potatoes are easier to harvest than digging in the ground. We plant 150-200 linear feet of potatoes in the ground each year (harvest is shared with family, friends, and market). Even with a plow blade to lift the potatoes, it is a lot of work.
I have a lot of large planter pots where I test plant combinations for yield in small spaces. Last year I placed a potato in each pot. Some potatoes finishes growing before the end of the season so harvesting disturbed other plants in the pots. Longer season varieties grew for most of the season. After the frost when I was clearing out the pots I harvested a few pounds of potatoes from each pot even with competition with ground cherry, basil, parsley, a couple onions and a hot pepper plant.

I remain skeptical -- though I like easy harvest as much as the next person. But maybe this is a fit subject for a Permies Potato Experiment.

The cultivariable link Christopher posted is worth reading properly. I think the issue is people see one good harvest video and assume it scales, but most of the yield comes from the original seed layer, not the ones you add higher up. Containers are great for earlies though, just not sure the tower part adds much.

I was hoping to try this with the wire tower for potatoes as my garden where I first planted when we moved here has seemed to flood more when we get a lot of rains and my attempts at planting potatoes there just turn to mush. I might go ahead and try this near my raised beds. Even if I get a few pounds, it is better than what I have gotten. Been trying to figure out where I could put another garden, but may need more raised beds.

John C Daley wrote:A very clever Amish trick

Adorable art,and excellent info.

In the first twenty seconds I heard an AI generated voice narrating an AI generated cartoon. If something of value showed up later, I missed it because the twenty seconds was all I could tolerate. A lot of Amish live in my neighborhood, they might get a good laugh at it.

John C Daley wrote:Nynke, no I have not, I never seem to get going with any vegetable planting, which is why I thought the tower was clever.
Christopher, thank you for the surprising counter case for the towers.
For those not inclined to look up Chris's referenec [sic]
[...]
The purpose of hilling is not to stimulate production of tubers, but to protect the tubers from the environment.
Potato yield is primarily limited by foliage area, not by the amount of soil above the seed tuber.

In my experience here at Wheaton Labs, we've covered potatoes with soil and mulch of some kind to protect them, and were elated when the potato shrubs seemed to overtake the area where they were planted. With a massive potato shrub, we'll consistently have a lovely yield.

I think it's tempting to ignore the presence of foliage, coupled with the hopes that all the magic of potatoes happens underground. My take is that caring for the above-ground portions of the potato is undervalued in typical, "conventional" gardening.

I tried it, and it didn't work. Then I googled, and I found out that it truly doesn't work. There are loads of videos perpetuating BS, and they often look very clean, staged or even AI. That cultivariable guy knows what he's talking about, he grows potatoes for half a century or so.

Years ago I tried it. Failure. I read somewhere that indeterminate potatoes would work. I had planned to eventually try again once I'd located some indeterminate potatoes..... Not high on my to do list novel.

Cultivariable says indeterminate potatoes do NOT work. Sigh of relief. I'm not missing out. Something to cross off my extensive list.