The round black things you see are our experimental potato beds (we're doing two at the Plot and more at home in our tiny side yards). Growing potatoes vertically can be a good way to grow them - easy to harvest, space-conserving. I read that you can get up to 100 pounds of potatoes in 4 square feet of growing space. What you see in the photo is the first riser. Once the potato plants starts growing, we'll add more dirt and another riser, up to 3 or 4 feet. We're using this black stuff, which is actually culvert pipe, because we had it on hand. While not as charming as a wood bed would have been, it's what we had. Salvage, repurpose - that's the frugal, sustainable, permaculture thing to do.
Our version of a sunny day:
This was a volunteer rhubarb plant from a previous Plot gardener, growing in the middle of our designated squash area:
Today we added more dirt around the edges, tried to remember where we planted what (we forgot to take labels with us when we planted all those seeds), and did some unnecessary watering (of course it started raining shortly after we left).
Our old neighbor in the Palouse had a tradition of planting potatoes on Good Friday. I've adopted it even though Good Friday jumps around a lot on the calendar. Some people grow potatoes vertically in old tires. Black plastic culvert is more attractive than that.
ReplyDeletethe other garden spots do not look like yours ......... you are ruining the neighborhood!
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