Potato tyre stacks - part 2

Attempt #2, Penny scratching around

Back in June (winter) I attempted my potato tyre stacks for all the reasons in our original post.  At first things went well, but alas after a period of rain the plants seemed to die off. The tyre stacks were on some concrete, and I assumed that they had become waterlogged and had rotted the tubers.   Moving the stacks slightly to allow drainage didn't seem to help - it seems I was too late.  Meanwhile my neighbours' potatoes dug into the ground seemed really healthy, so the whole experiment seemed to be a failure.  Key learning here - get your drainage right if you're in a high rainfall area!

It's the start of spring here, and everything's coming to life, including a few potato plants from tubers I'd planted in the grounds last season. The fruit tree area is probably going to have a chicken under story at some point, so while chicken manure is great, I'm not sure I want too much concentration in the potatoes in case of pathogens.  So with healthy plants establishing, and it being the right time of year, it's time to do the experiment again.

Not much of a yield, but not a complete failure.

So reusing the tyres from the last stack, I've put these around one potato plant with the aim to stack it about 5 tyres high over the growing season.  In theory the whole stack should fill with spuds, including some under the ground and the soil should be really healthy in the stack without any pathogens.

When grabbing the old tyres, I found a whole bunch of tiny new potatoes, so it seemed the original attempt didn't fail after all, and with patience we might have got there in the end.  We've dug these in elsewhere in the garden so they might surprise us at some point in the future.

Interestingly enough, also in the old stack were the fattest worms we've seen at our place - about twice the size, which is telling us that the little micro-ecosystem in the stacks is very healthy indeed.   Good to know.

Potato tyre stacks

I'd heard a number of times that old tyres are really useful for growing potatoes in. It was hard rubbish day here recently (where you put out all your bulky stuff and it gets taken away). The rubbish got picked over and much of it reused / re-purposed by the locals, but all of the tyres got left behind, so I figured it was time to put this potato tyre theory to the test at my place.

The idea is really simple - you get a few old tyres and plant a seed potato or two in the bottom of the first tyre. (You can use a normal potato, but your chances of having diseases in them in the regrowth is higher).

Once the leaves start growing out of the top, you can add mulch / compost / soil / whatever you have around the plant right up to the very tip. Once the stem is immersed, the potato plant will grow roots out of the side of the stem of the plant. Off those roots will grow new potatoes (and of course, there are still potatoes growing off the roots in the first tyre).

Once the plant grows some more, you add another tyre, and organic matter (making sure the top of the plant is not buried), and you can keep on doing this until you run out of tyres.

When you're ready to harvest, you simply remove the tyres one at a time, empty the dirt on the ground and every tyre should be full of fresh potatoes. This is a no dig method requiring minimal effort, and for someone who used to trawl potato fields as a kid, this is a good thing as digging them by hand is back breaking work.

Old tyres are great for a number of reasons. Firstly they are a good insulator and heat sink, so they keep your spuds at a good temperature. Secondly they're free. Thirdly (hopefully) with all the hard wear of driving, worn tyres should have most of the toxins in them in an inert state, or perhaps gone altogether.

Our stack has been started with some potatoes from last season which were growing (not very well) in a cardboard box which have just sprung into action recently, so we'll see how they go. The tyre stack is stacked on newspaper, which is on top of concrete down the side of our garden shed. The lane is not otherwise useful, but is oriented North/South so gets nice winter sun.

We'll update with pictures and comments in the coming weeks, and through to harvest.