Growing Potatoes in a Tire Planter

Potatoes grow best in cool, loose, well-drained, fertile, and slightly acid soil. Add some compost or a little peat, but don't use large amounts of organic matter, such as manure, in the soil where potatoes are to be grown. Potatoes can be planted as soon as the ground can be worked in the spring. This will vary according to your location. When the soil temperature is at or above 45 degrees F. it's most likely time to plant.

The potato seeds used for growing potatoes are called seed potatoes. They are simply whole small potatoes or pieces of potatoes that have developed "eyes." Sprouts grow from these eyes on the seed potatoes and develop into potato plants. You may find that potatoes you have on hand have begun to grow sprouts from the eyes, indentations in their flesh. Store-bought potatoes are usually sprayed with a chemical that inhibits sprouting so, though they may still produce a crop, the best results will be achieved by purchasing seed potatoes from a garden store or seed catalog.

There are almost unlimited options for where you can grow potatoes. Here is how to grow potatoes in almost any space you can find:

potatoes grown in hills in a garden row.

Garden rows, trenches or furrows: Plant the seed potatoes in an 8 inch deep furrow or trench you have dug in your garden. Fill 1/2 the depth of the furrow with a mixture of compost, mulch, straw and garden soil. Place the seed potatoes in the trench 8 - 12 inches apart and cover with loose garden soil and mulch.

Step4

Grow potatoes in hills: Loosen the soil and place two or three seed potatoes on the ground. Cover or "hill" three to four inches of soil over the seed potatoes. Space hills about a foot apart. Continue to mound soil around the growing potato plants as they grow taller.

Step5

Grow potatoes in mulch: Dig a shallow trench and set seed potatoes about 12 inches apart. Cover with about 4 inches of soil. Add more mulch as the plants grow leaving the foliage of the potato plants exposed. Potatoes will form inside the layer of mulch.

Grow potatoes in straw: In Scandinavian countries people have been growing potatoes for centuries in stacks of straw or other mulching material. Seed potatoes are planted directly in the straw. As the potato vines grow, more straw or mulch is mounded around the base of the plants. This method allows for a harvest of very clean potatoes. New potatoes can easily be picked even before the potato vines mature completely.

Grow potatoes in raised beds: Build a framework of wood, rock, or concrete blocks. Add soil and compost. Plant your seed potatoes and keep well watered. Raised beds are a great solution for how to grow potatoes in small spaces or an area where the soil is poor.

potatoes growing in tires used as planters Grow potatoes in stacked tires: Stack two or three tires and fill them with soil and compost. Plant two to three seed potatoes about 2 inches deep in the top tire. Water well. You can add more tires and soil to the stacks for your growing potato plants.

Step9

Growing potatoes in other containers: Patio pots, garbage cans, plastic garbage bags, in fact almost any container you can think of, can become your “potato garden.” Again, the basic considerations for growing potatoes in almost any container are fertile soil, a sunny location and adequate water.

You can begin harvesting potatoes for your dinner table about eight weeks from time of planting. These small, tasty "new potatoes" are perfect to use for soup or to cook with creamed peas or other dishes. The new potatoes will appear shortly after your potato plants have bloomed and before the vines die. When the potatoes are 1 to 2 inches in size, remove a few from the hills or planters to enjoy throughout the growing season..

Potatoes are easy to grow, but tough to harvest, here is an easy way to do this using a few old tires

What you'll need:

3 or 4 old tires - most places that fix tires will be happy to have you take away a few. Avoid steel belted tires because the metal is poison to the potato.
4 Seed potatoes - you can get these from an agricultural supplier, if that's not possible then 6 regular potatoes should work, but you won't get as high a yield. Choose the kind of potato you would plan to eat. Use a separate tire garden for each potato variety you wish to harvest
Weathered Straw or other Mulch.

Construction.

If you started with regular potatoes, put them in a dark place until they start sprouting.

Pick a location with plenty of light.

Place some cardboard or several layers of newspaper on the ground, on it place the tire, spread the potatoes around the inside of the tire, on the cardboard and cover them with about 5cm of mulch. Wait ....

The potatoes should grow up through the mulch, when they are sticking out about 6-8" (15 or 20cm) then add more mulch, leaving about one inch (almost 3cm) of growth sticking through. Keep doing this until the shoots start to flower. Add more tires as the potatoes grow. You don't have to wait the whole growing season to begin to harvest potatoes. You can carefully reach into the mulch and find the right size potatoes for a summer meal. More potatoes will take the place of the harvested potato. .You've built a potato growing machine. ...

When the flowers die, lift off the tires, amid the mulch should be a bumper crop of potatoes, with the added bonus that they'll already be clean.

Credits: Authored by Mitra, from information supplied by Geoff Lawton of Permaculture Research Institute with editing by Allen Heart

Growing Potatoes in a Tire Planter
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