They are doing great, eh? Good for you.

At a certain point (not familiar with the bag method, but I get the gist of it) you quit hilling up (or adding to the bag) and just let them grow.

Jim

So it's not too early to stop hilling them? I had thought I would have to do this all summer long, but I'd have about 15 feet of soil on top of them at this rate, lol.

Okay, I guess as long as I can stop within the next week, there's no problem. I just thought it was way too early.

Thanks for the reassurance!
Dee

I plan to stop hilling once mine begin flowering.

Thank you, carawaykara. I'll just stop hilling when I run out of room. I guess I don't have much choice, lol.

Next season, come hell or high water, I am going to try the box method that several folks here are doing. Well, first I'm going to learn how to do basic carpentry, and THEN I'm going to try the box method. :)

Thank you!
Dee

Just for kicks, I bought 2 of the garden supply potato bags, and man, are they going nuts in there too. The potatoes have loves this weather!!!!!

I also have others growing in my raised beds, and they are going like crazy too :D

Susaneden, I have one of the bags as well, and I 110% concur w. what you say. I harvest mine at "new" stage, but the plants were absolutely out of control! They sprawled every which way they wanted, and even some it appears that they DIDNT want to. A great investment to be sure!

Wow, I just wish I had tried growing potatoes earlier in my gardening life! If they are this easy, and I get good results with the end product, I'm sold. I've got to learn how to swing a hammer so I can make some of those nice-looking bins I've been seeing here. Maybe in the meantime I'll look into these bags...

Dee

Dee, you definitely should--an easy, painless, productive, and relatively inexpensive experiment :D

Bomber, it was definitely worth the price! I am thinking of harvesting early (before the plants take over my whole garden and yard) and trying something else in the bag, as they said it would also work for other plants. Hmmm--I am afraid to try squash in there rofl!

okay - i want some details on this bag thing - and the box thing too.......where is the thread? i am new to veggie gardening - have always done just flowers...

Roseyp, sending you a pm with a link

Cool - thanks - just read up on it - interesting! course, i also found the link to the FLOWERING potatoes lol - which is even more interestin! :)

Roseyp--You are very welcome : D

About the flowering taters--I almost got those! If you do get them, please let me know how they look/do.

I dont know if I'm goign to be planting potatoes this year. It's almost June, and I'm going to be in California the last week of August and dont want them to dry out

You can also grow potatoes in plastic garbage cans. Just use a sharp box knife to cut some square holes in the bottom for drainage. One of my neighbors did this in her driveway, and tilted the cans with bricks toward the sun until they got tall enough to peek out themselves.

Fresh potatoes vs store potatoes = no comparison!

Sue

Sue--that is so cool! I am actually growing most of mine in bushel baskets :D

Well I have read with great interest this thread and the earlier one about building potato boxes with successive "levels" that can be added on as the plants grow to induce highest yields. Like many of you I am dying to try it. So help me brainstorm something here. I have access to 55-gallon plastic drums, which can be cut into sections. How could I construct a potato-growing tower with "rings" of these plastic sections (maybe 6" to 12" in height each?)? How would I attach each ring to the growing tower such that it would stay in place securely? I am initially thinking of drilling holes to attach locking clasps or latches or some such. I am not a builder or a hardware guru, but some of YOU are, so tell me what you think of this idea please.

Cut your rings. Slit each ring once vertically. Cut drainage holes in bottom of bottom 'pot'.

Number each ring from bottom to top(i.e., #1, #2, #3). Overlap #1 ring about 1/2" (fit it inside the bottom 'pot' to make sure that is enough overlap) and drill or burn 2 or 3 holes (less than 1/4" diameter) along the overlapped edge. While overlapped, push cotter pins through each set of holes and bend open. (You know how cotter pins work, right?)

With ring #2, overlap vertical cut edges a little more than 1/2". Fit it inside ring #1 to see what fits. Do the holes and cotter pin thing there.

Repeat with ring #3, which should be just a tiny bit smaller than ring #2.

It should look like three or four stacked hatboxes, each slightly smaller than the one below it.

Cotter pins are found everywhere, they're cheap, they're easily bent with pliers, and easy to remove. Just make sure the head is larger than the hole. If you can't do this, get twice the number of cotter pins. Push the working pin through the holes, and run another one through the head of the first one to act as a crossbar.

Sue

Here is a link that might be useful: Cotter pins

You may need to drill holes and place cotter pins in the overlap where the rings fit into the pot or ring below, to keep them from telescoping down inside each other. Three per level should be enough.

Cordless drills are pretty reasonable these days, and if you don't have one, you should get one. You'll find all kinds of uses for it.

Sue

We planted potatos for the first time this season using the garbage can method on March 15. Like you, we thought we'd continually have to add compost all season up to the top.

They were a bit slow to start out, but then they *exploded*, and we just added our last bit of compost to the top last weekend.

It's great, though, because now all we have to do is watch them grow all summer and wait!