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Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Epic Fail

I'm borrowing an expression from my brother here, to describe the potato "harvest" this year.
It was laughable.  Wanna see?


I can't stop laughing--and crying. 
Just pathetic.

I've learned some things though, and here they are:

1.  The tire thing doesn't work, because it produced lots of very skinny, long, leafless stems and no potatoes.
2.  Stuffing straw into the tires instead of dirt does not make the potato plants make more potatoes.  Whoever said that it works was lying.
3.  Mice like to live in the tires and (probably) eat potatoes.

UGH.  This is disappointing. 

I have a plan for next year, though.  I have accumulated a lot of tires in this project, so I'm going to use them for things like raised beds for other plants, like carrots, which in my dirt, always need raised beds.  Also, I will not use straw to hill up the plants.  I will just make sure I have plenty of dirt around.

We live and learn, ay?

As to my dinky little "harvest" above, I will try to save them for seed.  It would be nice if some good came from this after all.

:)

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3 comments:

  1. I tried buckets this year for some of my potatoes, and yes, they didn't do well either. The ants also decided to move in. I think the buckets were too dry.

    The best potatoes have come from our raised beds. I put a few inches of compost on them at the beginning of the year, and we have huge potatoes now. As in enormous. I'm happy about the size, but I would have liked more potatoes to harvest.

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  2. Raised beds seem to be the ticket. I think you are able to lock in all of that rich soil and really concentrate on the vegetables. I am going to give a go coming up as well. Would love to hear how the tires work out.

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  3. Oh sure, now I find this! After stuffing seed potatoes in bushel baskets, pots, and other random containers! I read that coffee bags do not work either. They disintegrate. I may try a real wood potato condo last year. thank you for sharing.

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