Garden 15 Aug 2006 11:04 am
potato crop disappointment
A few months ago, Josh and I watched an episode of “Gardening with Ciscoe” in which Ciscoe Morris plants potatoes in a big garbage can. He suggests that you put good potting soil on the bottom, mix in some organic rhodie fertilizer, and plant the potatoes way down in the bottom. As the vines come up, he said, you keep dumping in wood chips, or shredded leaves, or bark, or what-have-you. Supposedly the little potatoes will form all along the vines throughout the whole garbage can. We had a lot of shredded bark on hand, so we used that.
Well, with all due respect to Ciscoe, it didn’t work worth a darn for our Caribe potatoes. We got a potato or two on the vines in the bark, and a few more down in the potting soil. But the overwhelming majority were right where soil met bark. That’s not a lot of space, and we did not get a lot of potatoes. They’re still good, but it wasn’t exactly cost-effective.
Next year, we’ll try it with dirt like normal people. Live and learn.
on 15 Aug 2006 at 11:49 am 1.Rebecca said …
I planted mine in stacked tires with dirt. Just dirt. Little reds. When I pick the potatoes out of the first tire, I discard, it, then on to the next. I think dirt is probably a safe bet even though it’s just dirt. Do you think Cisco is doing Megan Black?
on 15 Aug 2006 at 1:25 pm 2.oddangel said …
Huh. I have hard time believing that just bark would provide enought nutrient for potatoes. Maybe if he said a mix of compost and bark. We had several potato plants inadvertently growing out of our compost pile this year.
on 15 Aug 2006 at 2:43 pm 3.Cam Sculpin said …
Yeah. I know that potatoes are said to love crummy soil, but I’m thinking not that crummy. Oh well - it was worth a try.
They certainly liked our lousy, sandy dirt last year. We have a few volunteers this year in the old potato patch.
(Ciscoe doing Megan Black? I think I need to go scrub my brain.)
on 15 Aug 2006 at 3:47 pm 4.Anonymous said …
Well, you have to experiment, even if they don’t always work. I applaud your efforts.
on 16 Mar 2007 at 12:21 am 5.Phil said …
Did your potatoes turn out ok?
If they did you could take a look at my blog: www.makesomemash.blogspot.com for some culinary inspiration
on 29 Oct 2007 at 5:40 pm 6.bonnie pearson said …
I did that experiment with potatoes planted in a garbage can this spring. We just dumped it out today and got 10 fist sized potatoes. It was disappointing but may try again next year and see if I have more luck. I thought the soil was fertile but maybe I will add more fertilizer?