Potatoes in Bins

Keeping with the theme, "The garden is a living class room for our mind.", we try to add something new here to the farm every year.  This year we decided we would try to grow potatoes, but instead of growing them in the ground, we wanted to try them in raised beds.  The reason for this was simply space.  Since all of our growing is done in town, we a lot of times run low on space so most of the gardening we do here is above ground.

To start this project we used:

(25) 1" x 6" x 24" boards

(4) 2" x 2" x 30" pieces of wood

(120) 1 x 5/8 screws

cordless drill 

To start out we laid 2 pieces of the 2" x 2" x 30" pieces of wood on the ground and then attached 5 pieces of 1" x 6" x 24" to the the 2" x 2" pieces with 3 evenly placed screws.

We did that twice, and then attached 5 more boards to the third side.  After you finish this you should have what looks like a 3 sided box.  

On the 4th side we added only one board to the bottom.  

We filled this with 1-2" of peat moss/compost/manure and then added our potatoes.  Because the box is 2' x 2' we were able to place 16 potato pieces in the box.  (You can plant 4 potato plants per square foot...) and we covered them with 1 inch of our soil mixture.  

When the plants sprout out of the soil about 2-3" you completely cover them again, just enough so you can't see any green.  You do this over and over again until your potatoes get to the top of the box and then wait for the tops to turn brown.  At that point it is harvest time!  

Please keep in mind that I have not harvested this way yet.  We are up to our fourth board, and our potatoes are growing like crazy!  I think this is going to be amazing, but if you want to make sure you can wait for The Reluctant Farmer and I to harvest these in the fall.....