It is that time. I am always looking for a way to save space and towers of plants is one of those ways. So let's see if growing vegetables in a tower is even possible.
This could get messy - I started this tower with plastic mesh for walls. It has always been messy because water would wash some of the soil down the tower walls. It even started leaning as the weight of the soil and erosion collapsed the plastic fencing near the bottom.
To see some of those challenges and a bit more about this experiment, see the first,
second, and third posts I made on this project. Remember also that this project started and grew through winter here in South America, so there was no direct sun light hitting these plants.
Let's get started!
I get ready to make a mess by putting a piece of plastic down. I don't want too much soil going down the patio drains. Potatoes are harvested as the plants whither and these are fully withered.
You can see all the zip-ties I had used to keep the stems of the plants close to the tower so they would not break. There are also bright yellow zip ties on this tower which hold the black mesh in its tubular shape, those are the ones we will clip today in order to dismantle it.
Let's tip the tower on its side.
The top is closed due to a thief, some critter, that was getting into the tower and eating the newly planted spuds every night after I had added more to the mix. We will open that up first - held shut by a dowel rod. Then we remove the internal watering pipe made of PVC. The PVC seems stuck, so I will get that out in a bit. It will be used again in the new, redesigned, potato tower - already in progress.
Now that we have it on its side, we just need to clip the zip ties that are holding the screening together, but before I do that, I want to show you what the problem is with this design, especially when it gets tall!
The screening toward the bottom tends to buckle and then the tower leans and I had to make a lot of changes to get it back straight up right again. Nothing worked except placing something between one side of the pot and the floor, so that gravity could make it lean back upright. I will not repeat this design for that reason.
Watch for a post on Potato Tower II coming soon. It is completely closed except for ports in the plastic walls for the plants to exit and get sun. I will be documenting the progress on that one (already started).
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! All around my terrace. This is a bit like opening a present. We are not sure the size or how many taters are in there.
Before we can open this potato tower, flat on the ground, there are a couple of yellow zip ties near the rim of the pot. Those are deep down in the wrinkles of the fencing mesh. It is a bit tougher to get the cutters in there to clip them. The mesh is also glued to the inside of the pot rim, if I remember right.
A quick yank on the mesh to straighten out that wrinkle and I am able to reach it. Clip.
As I begin to remove the watering tube that went from top all the way to bottom, with holes to water the dirt from the inside as it went down, a section of the tubular dirt seems to be separating from the rest of the tubular dirt. It is starting to break apart.
I am starting to see potato skin in the midst of the dirt...
Another thing I noticed as the dirt opens up, letting us see what is inside, there are tons of worms in there. I am not sure what airline those worms came in on. I make this tower using bags of store bought soil and there were no worms in it. It was dry dirt.
However they arrived, it's good to know that I had earthworms doing their job to make this harvest a success!
I immediately scooped up the live worms and put them into the other planters so they can continue to perform their noble task in my garden.
It looks like there was another zip tie hiding below the soil surface. I think everything will go flat on the ground once I cut that one.
Well, the potatoes I'm finding are not huge, but there are a lot of them. I still want to separate them and put some of the dirt back into my soil bucket, and see where we end up! I will need that soil because the new potato tower is already knee high and it is twice the size around.
It was a bit of work to disassemble this monstrosity but now comes the easy part. We have the plastic mesh flat on the ground and we need only save the worms to another planter and collect the spuds.
The smallest ones that had roots went to live in Potato Tower II and are not included in this photo. I am recouping the dirt I used and it is much richer dirt than I bought because I had been putting fallen leaves in as I grew the potato tower. If you remember, I was using leaves like walls to keep dirt from washing out through the mesh.
This was a successful experiment on saving valuable floor space on my terrace. I learned what to do and what not to do. My new tower should grow through the summer months instead of winter. All of the potatoes you see here grew in 44 to 75 degrees with zero direct sunlight. The learning experience was invaluable and will produce much more, with less being eaten by foragers as the summer progresses.
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