Growing potatoes in a small space

submitted by: Rob Smith

If your like me, you want to grow some potatoes but don't a lot of room for it. A friend of mine that grows potatoes by the acre told me about this little trick. He doesn't use it, but he has acres of garden to use.

The only thing you need for this tip is a few junk tires, or you can build some wooden boxes to serve the same purpose. I'll use tires for the description, because that is what I was told to use. But you can just substitute wood boxes for tires.

First, lay a tire down and fill it with dirt and plant your seed potatoes in it.

When the potato plant starts to sprout and leaves have formed lay another tire on top of the first and fill with more dirt. Yes, burying the leaves. When the leaves come up through the dirt again, add another tire and more dirt. You can do this for about four or five tires high. Then leave it grow until harvest time.

The leaves that were covered with dirt should turn into potatoes, thus increasing your yield from the one plant. Theoretically you could end up with a bushel of potatoes from one plant.

I haven't tried this yet, but I plan to this spring.