Potatoes in garbage bags

On 5 Apr 2004 05:05:21 -0700 in , snipped-for-privacy@frontiernet.net (Marita J. Buffone) graced the world with this thought:

I've grown them this way in straw (as opposed to dirt) with pretty good luck.

My grandfather used to do this, and never had any problems. I'm not sure, but I think one drawback is that the seedlings are more susceptable to disease.

Stacked tires are supposed to work well. :-)

I'd worry about mold growth with plastic bags???

Dunno.

K.

On Mon, 05 Apr 2004 13:27:42 -0500 in , Katra graced the world with this thought:

I've done that one, too, it works quite well, the black tires heat the straw, and the plants go nuts.

I heard that about the tires. Our town has a cleanup day coming up. I bet I could get some from there.

Going forward, I wonder if the stacked tires could be used for tomatoes, too. I don't see why not. DH will LOVE seeing tires all over the yard, though :).

Marita

Tomatoes grow above ground so the tires would only serve as a raised bed. The advantage of growing potatoes in stacked tires is that you just remove one tire at a time and the potatoes fall out; much easier than digging them out of the ground.

We have found that tire stores are delighted, thrilled, to give us all the free tires we want - they'll even load them into the car for us.

It costs the tire stores in our town $3 *each* to dispose of tires - at least, that's what they tell us and they've no reason to lie about it.

Pat

Supermarket potatoes grow perfectly! It is best to plant small whole ones, rather than be tempted to cut a large one up into separate pieces. The cut surfaces do tend to rot.

After you plant the spuds there should be no need to water them until they have put up a nice bunch of green leaves. Just cover with lots of mulch and dry leaves, etc. This cover will also protect them from the odd late frost.

I'm in Australia, where we like spuds as much as do the Irish.

two ways to reduce rot are to dry the cut before planting, or rub it in wood ash. I do the latter, and I guess that rotting happens 5% of the time or less.

Hi. Read this thread with interest. Just curious, how many seed potatoes do you plant in the tires? One, two, maybe? Also, how high or how many tires would you stack and fill with mulch or whatever before you stop and wait before you start harvesting the crop? I have access to lots of well composted mushroom manure, would that be ok to use in the tires or would that be too strong for the spuds? Just subscribed to this newsgroup, my first post, hope this comes through ok. If not, my apologies, Bill.